Divergence
by Brawlfire Prime
Summary: "Relax Claire, It's just me and your nephews spending a day in a park with one of the best safety records on the planet, what's the worst that could happen?" (AU, Established Claire/Zara)
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Jurassic World and the Jurassic Park franchise are the property of Universal Studios, Michael Crichton, Steven Spielberg and Colin Trevorrow. I own nothing from this story aside from the plot.

 _Authors Note: Greetings readers! After spending many years lurking on , I decided to try my hand at writing my own story. As this is my first time writing, reviews and constructive criticism are definitely appreciated. Also, this is entirely self-proofread, so any mistakes are my own. Anyway, onto the story._

Zara Young stood on the balcony of their penthouse in the Hilton that overlooked the park, the setting sun bathing the landscape in a sea of orange and blue, making look almost painting like. She was amazed at the scale of what the park had accomplished. For 10 years the park allowed its visitors to experience the awe and the majesty of prehistoric earth and it never stopped amazing her, even for a second.

Just as she was about to turn around and walk back inside, a soft pair of arms encircled her waist and a chin settled on her shoulder.

"What are you thinking about?" That was none other than her Girlfriend and boss Claire Dearing, operations manager of Jurassic World.

She sighed and leaned back in Claire's embrace, taking Claire's right hand to trail kisses down her arm and said,

"Just all of this, years ago it would've been impossible to achieve something like this and yet here we are. Where people can see and touch the giants of old, real living breathing dinosaurs, Claire, don't you find that exciting?"

"You do know that none of our dinosaurs are 100 percent genuine right?"

Zara rolled her eyes at that, she just had to ruin the moment.

"Of course I do, but that's beside the point. Have you seen how kids react the first time they come here? It's really something to behold. They get to see and touch animals that they've only known through books and fossils. The way their faces light up, it's magical."

"Give it a couple of more years, they'll get bored and we'll have to make a new dino to keep them interested."

She turns around in Claire's arms to face her.

"Why do you always have to be so pessimistic?"

"I'm not, that's just how it is."

"Fine", she sighs out, not wanting another lecture about the realities of running a park like this, so she changed the topic.

"Anyway, are you ready for tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow?"

"Yes, you remember the boys are coming tomorrow right, Zach and Gray, Your nephews?"

"Of course I do, and besides, why do _you_ look so nervous, you know the boys love you"

"Is that why most of the Christmas invites are addressed to me now, and I spend almost every Christmas with your family?" Zara asks sarcastically.

"Oh, come on, you know Christmas last year was one of our most busiest years, I _had_ to stay at the park."

"And the one before that?"

"Well, we had that corporate dinner and I felt that as park manager, it would be inappropriate if I was a no show"

"And the one before _that_?"

"What are you trying to say?" Claire asks, head tilted quizzically at the direction their conversation was heading.

"I'm trying to say that _maybe_ you could try spending more time with your family and not have to send your girlfriend to sub for you. You know how I grew up Claire, seeing your family every year really made me see what I missed out on when I was a kid and I feel you shouldn't miss out on it"

"But the park.."

"The park can handle you being gone for a week, you've been running this place nonstop since we first opened. You _deserve_ a break" Zara says, trying to convince her to at least take a day off.

"If it makes you happy, I'll take a day off. But only after tomorrow's meeting with those Verizon execs, we still need to find a sponsor for the Indominus"

"See, was that so hard?" she teases, leaning forward to peck Claire on the lips.

"Alright you've had your fun, now c'mon lets head in, it's been a long day and I just want to get some sleep"

Hearing the exhaustion in her girlfriend's voice, Zara nods, Claire letting her arms go and heads inside but just as she turns around she feels her phone vibrate and answers, giving Zara an apologetic look, mouthing Masrani to her when she sees the contact ID and answers, lifting it to her ear.

"Claire Dearing" She says, trying keep an air of professionalism around her boss.

"Claire, how are you doing?!" Masrani answers, excited to talk to one of his favorite employees.

"I'm doing fine but why the call sir? Usually you'd call my assistant first"

"Just wanted to give you a small heads-up, I'm coming by tomorrow to check on my new dinosaur, what was it, the Indominus Rex?"

"Of course, sir" Claire responds, albeit a little reluctantly.

"Good, good. Alright, I'll meet you tomorrow. Have a nice day Claire!"

"You too sir" She says, sighing as she hangs up. She had to go back on her word to Zara, but decided that could wait till tomorrow and headed in.

Later, Claire was settling herself in bed, Zara right beside her, snuggling into her shoulder.

"What was that phone call about?" She asked sleepily, wondering who called her.

Claire sighed while running her hand through her hair and said "No one, just some business people"

Zara, who was drifting deeper into sleep, tightened her embrace around her and just said, "Ok, goodnight"

"Goodnight, I love you" Claire said, exhaustion finally catching up and drifted into oblivion as well but not before hearing her partner mumble, "Love you too".


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Jurassic World and the Jurassic Park franchise are the property of Universal Studios, Michael Crichton, Steven Spielberg and Colin Trevorrow. I own nothing from this story aside from the plot.

 _Authors note: Greetings readers! First off, I'd like to thank everyone for the great response to the first chapter, thanks especially to Invader Johnny for the review. Now onto the next chapter where we have our first interaction between Zara and the boys here. As always, Comments and constructive criticism are appreciated, always looking for ways to improve as a writer. This story is self-proofread so apologies if there are any mistakes._

The next morning, they were both having breakfast in the hotel, the breakfast lounge bustling with life as it usually did with the sound of silverware clattering and idle chatter from the parks guests. At their table, Zara was busy tucking into a plate of eggs and sausages while Claire was sipping some coffee, a simple cinnamon roll on her plate.

"So, I've printed out an itinerary for the boys activities today." Claire said, pulling out a list from her briefcase and handing it to Zara, who examines it, slightly shocked at how detailed it was, planned down to the second.

"Then I take it you'll be joining us?" Zara said, noting that something this detailed meant Claire was going to be there.

"Well, yes and no." She replied, a little reluctantly, chewing on her bottom lip.

"Claire, what are you not telling me?" Zara said, brows furrowed in confusion.

"Umm, well I'll be at The Innovation Center to greet the boys, but I won't be with them at the park, something came up."

Hearing this, all Zara could do was cover her face in her hands and groan then she said "Really, who is it this time?"

"It's Mr. Masrani, he wants to come down and see how the Indominus is doing."

"But Claire, you promised!"

"I know what I said alright, but…."

"But what?"

"This is the first time he's checking on the Indominus and I need to be there to make sure everything goes smoothly. After that I'll be free for the whole week."

"The _whole_ week?" she asks, eyebrow raised questioningly, doubt shadowing her face.

"Yes."

"Then, here's your itinerary back, I won't be needing it." She says, handing Claire the piece of paper.

"But, how will I know where you guys are going to be, where you're going to go?"

Zara held up a hand in a calming gesture, "Claire, relax. I can handle this, it'll be fine".

"But what if something happens? Like a dinosaur escapes its paddock or a power outage or…" Claire flusters out, panicking at the thought of something terrible happening.

"Claire, calm down. I've read the employee handbook, I know all of the parks safety protocols by heart in case of an emergency and besides, we have one of the best safety records on the planet, what's the worst that could happen?"

Later, Zara was found near the docks, anxious to see Claire's nephews. The kids, Gray mostly were excited when they called that they were almost at the docks, ready to meet their Aunt Claire and Zara and spend a weekend in the park.

Aunt Zara, she turned that word over and over in her head. The kids took a liking to her the second Claire introduced her to her sister's family all those years ago, Zach was eager to ask about any details on what it was like to work at the park . Then came the multiple Christmases with the family she attended and the Aunt label stuck.

She was broken out of her reverie, a little ball of energy came running from the boat, screaming,

"Aunt Zara!"

She bends down to catch him in her arms, twirling him around before setting him down and ruffle his hair before remarking,

"Gray, it's been such a long time! Look at how much you've grown!"

"Nice to see you again Aunt Zara!" his smile is infectious and she smiles back at him to then ask,

"Where's your brother, I thought he'd be…"

"Hi, Aunt Zara." standing a little awkwardly behind him is none other than Zach, the older brother. Zara rushes forward to hug him but he squirms in her hold, grumbling,

"C'mon Aunt Zara, people are staring."

"Zach, is that any way to talk to your Aunt that you haven't seen since last year?"

He finally relents and hugs her back, muttering a reluctant,

"I'm sorry."

"Good, now come on, you both must be dreadfully tired. Let's get to the monorail so we can get you to your hotel-"

"Where's Aunt Claire?" Gray asks, wondering where she would be, clearly expecting her to be there.

The pit of her stomach drops, she dreaded one of them would ask that ever since this morning when Claire asked her to go alone, due to that meeting with the Verizon execs.

She kneels down to face him and try to find a way to explain to him, but before she can say anything, Gray depressingly says,

"She's not here is she?"

"No, no she's not, but she will meet us later at the visitor center." she replies in the best way she can.

"But she'll be with us in the park later, right?"

"Definitely, she will." she knew it was a lie, but she had to reassure him, Claire could explain it to them later.

She can still see he's a little bit depressed, but luckily you know exactly what to do to cheer him back up.

"Hey, Gray. Do you know what the most dangerous dinosaur we have here is?"

He shook his head "No."

"It's the Ticklesaurus!"

Her hands rush to his sides, beginning a merciless tickle assault on him that bring him to tears laughing, she can sense Zach rolling his eyes at the old trick but it works and that's what matters. She stops after a while, ruffling his hair as he's still giggling.

"There, feel better?"

He nods in response.

She stands back up, taking Gray's hand and leads them both to the monorail station "Alright then, let's go, don't want to miss the monorail."


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Jurassic World and the Jurassic Park franchise are the property of Universal Studios, Michael Crichton, Steven Spielberg and Colin Trevorrow. I own nothing from this story aside from the plot.

 _Authors note: Greetings Readers! first things first, I would like to greatly apologize for the delay of this chapter. I've been very busy for the past couple of days working on a script for my college screenwriting class and it has severely limited my time to work on this story, being struck with a cold doesn't help matters either. But now I'm back and will try to update on a more regular basis, probably every weekend. As always, comments and constructive criticism are very much welcome, always looking for ways to improve and a special thanks to Invader Johnny and zelene2004 for the reviews last chapter. Anyway, onto the story, hope you enjoy._

Later, they were on the monorail, heading to the park. She were sitting in the front, watching Gray excitedly peer through the front window, Zach tapping away at his phone next to her. Then Gray pointed excitedly at the approaching gates, the intercom announcing,

"Welcome…..to Jurassic World!"

"Whoa! Is that the Mosasaur Tank?! Can we go there later, please, please, can we, can we?!" Gray asks, jumping excitedly up and down.

She smiles at his excitement and plan a stop there later in the day.

After the monorail arrived at the park and checking into the hotel, the three of them headed out to the innovation center, Zara trying to catch up to a very enthusiastic Gray who charged off the second they left the hotel, Zach trailing behind her.

"Is he always this fast?" She asks Zach, still surprised at how much energy the little kid could have.

"You won't believe the half of it." he grumbles.

She rushes up the steps as Gray bursts in to the building and enters, holding the door open for Zach as she does so, struggling to find Gray among the Centers large crowd. Looking around, Zara found him interacting with the centers interactive displays which was next to the holographic dinosaurs, a T-Rex on display this time.

At the top of the center's spiral staircase, she saw Claire, clad in her usual all white attire, down to her white heels, which made her red hair stand out even more, coming down the stairs. She appeared to be on the phone with someone, a fact which made Zara roll her eyes 'so typical of her', she thought.

Claire hung up halfway down, walking up to the three of them when she reached the bottom, only managing to say hi before she was tackle hugged by a very enthusiastic Gray. Behind them, Zara could see her passing an envelope to the boys before telling them Zara was watching them for the whole day while Claire finished her meetings and was going to meet them later that night, wincing slightly when Gray asked "You're not coming with us?"

Claire turned to her, a pleading look in her eyes that said ' _please back me up'_ , but Zara only shook her head, this was her problem and she had to solve it herself. But Claire at least had the decency to do some damage control by saying that she would be with them tomorrow, convincing Gray enough though she could see Zach still had some serious doubts.

She then walked to her, sheepishly ducking from the glare that Zara was sending her way "Hey, are you still angry about this morning?" she asked nervously.

The unyielding glare was her only answer, but it softened eventually and she stepped closer to Claire.

Zara took both of Claire's hands and looked into her eyes saying, "Just be careful when you're at the paddock later alright? I really don't like how she looks at people, it's almost as if she's planning something."

She chuckled at the notion, "Honey, relax, It's just an animal."

Normally Zara would be inclined to agree, but she remembered the first time she saw the Indominus. It was part of the monthly inspection with the paddocks engineers and when Claire was busy discussing the specifications of the paddock with some of them, she took the opportunity to look into the enclosure.

"Where are you?" she said as she scanned the interior, trying to look past the towering trees, gasping when she laid eyes on her. She was a formidable looking one, she gave her that, with her bone white skin, rows and rows of sharp dagger like teeth, the slender rex like skull, long muscular tail and muscular dexterous hands that ended in claws that would make even a Baryonyx blush with envy. She gazed at her as she tore into a chunk of meat, using her claws for better grip.

But then the dinosaur looked up at her with those red eyes, jaws ruby red with blood and that made her freeze in fear. What she saw in those eyes were terrifying, there was no hint of emotion there, just cold malice directed at her and it sent shivers down Zara's spine.

The Indominus came closer to the observation platform, the ground trembling with each step she took and stopped right in of the window, her breath fogging up the glass as she cast a dark shadow over Zara.

Behind her, she could faintly hear Claire reassure the frightened engineers that the glass was designed to stop a fifty caliber bullet and nothing could break through it. She could also hear Claire telling her to step back but she couldn't, she was paralyzed with fear as the Rex peered at her with those eyes, like a sniper zoning in on a target, its body tensed for an attack and at that moment she felt so incredibly _small_.

She closed her eyes and steeled herself for the imminent attack, for the cracking and shattering of glass, for metal to creak and bend, but it never came.

When she opened her eyes again, she saw the Indominus was still but she could've sworn the dinosaur was _smiling_ at her, almost satisfied from the sheer terror radiating from her. Then the Indominus left, her main objective apparently fulfilled. Zara stumbled forwards, barely managing to grab the decks handle bars to steady herself and took rapid, sharp intakes of breath.

She jumped slightly when a hand touched her shoulder, but calmed down when she heard Claire's voice, who was whispering words of comfort to her as she rubbed circles into her back. "Hey, you alright?" Claire asked, worried that she just stood there as the Indominus loomed over them.

The moment was broken when she heard thunderous footsteps, the massive form of the Indominus charged at them and crashed into the window, causing large spider webs of cracks to form in the glass and the metal to shriek from the strain.

"Jesus!" she shouted as they stumbled back as far away from the windows as possible. The dinosaur clawed and roared at the glass, before fleeing back into the trees. "Can we just get out of here?" Zara asked shakily, not wanting to spend another minute in there, looking back to see that the engineers already left. Claire replied by gently taking her by the arm and hastily leading her to the elevator. But even as the elevator doors closed, she couldn't help shake the feeling that they were still being watched.


	4. Chapter 4

_Authors note: Greetings readers! And welcome to another chapter. First off, thank you everyone for their reviews for the last chapter, it really is exciting to see my story reach an audience and I'd really like to thank everyone who has been reading and reviewing so far. Also, I have a small announcement, I'll be having my college finals next week so there probably won't be an update after this. It really depends on how much time I can find to work on this._

 _Invader Johnny: Thanks for noticing my wording gaffe at the end of chapter three, I meant to say she felt the Indominus watching them but somehow I didn't notice it, I guess that what happens when you try to write two stories at the same time, gonna have to rewrite that soon._

 _Zelene2004 and Rockyrose13: This story will stray away from canon, but some of the park stuff I wasn't sure how to change due to the limited number of exhibits in the park's main street, so I kept the exhibit flow mostly the same and things like Karen's phone call and Claire's conversation with Owen stick somewhat to canon with some changes here and there. But I have changed the Gyrosphere and the Indominus encounter with something that fits more with the spirit of Jurassic Park, so the next chapter is where things get a little more exciting._

 _As always, comments and constructive criticism are very much welcome, always looking for ways to improve and I always love reading the comments. So now onto the story, hope you enjoy._

Zara was broken out of her reverie by Claire gently shaking her shoulder, "Zara, Zara, Are you okay?" she asked, worried about the dazed look in her partners face.

She shook her head to banish those memories from her mind, replying, "I'm fine, but just be safe alright? Whatever we have in there, it's no dinosaur."

"Don't worry about me, just go out there and have fun."

"And don't forget, we have reservations for Winston's tonight, eight o clock."

With that, Claire kissed her goodbye, said goodbye to her nephews and walked away to continue her call.

She turned to Zach and Gray, took Gray's hand and led them both out of the center, "Come on, we have a long day ahead of us. Petting zoo sound good to you, Gray?"

"What was that all about?" he asked as they walked out, wondering why she just spaced out.

"It's nothing, just a bad memory."

"Gray, Gray, sweetie over here!" She called out as she aimed her phones camera at him as he was excitedly riding on the back of a baby Triceratops, he turned to her, grinning from ear to ear and she took a picture, sending it to Claire with a 'Wish you were here!' caption.

That done, she turned her attention to a rather bored looking Zach, who was tapping away at his phone, sending a message to someone. "So Zach, how does it feel to finally be here?" she asked, remembering that he was always excited to hear about the park whenever she came over to visit.

"Oh, it's ok, I guess." He replied, not once looking up from his phone.

"OK? Now that's not the Zach I know, what's wrong?"

He looked up from his phone and sighed, "Look, I know why you and Aunt Claire are doing this alright and I appreciate it, but it's just….."

"It's just what?"

Before he could reply however, an overexcited Gray tackled her, knocking her off balance slightly.

"You've had your fun, Gray?" He nodded to her and she grabbed his hand again, "Good, now let's go somewhere else, we have a lot of park to cover."

Behind her, Zach sighed, glad to have the topic dropped, for now.

They made their way to Main Street, where Gray led the way, pointing excitedly towards the T-Rex Kingdom when he heard the intercom announce that the next feeding would occur in 10 minutes. The T-Rex or Rexy as she was nicknamed was one of the oldest specimens the park currently had, originally a resident of the old park before the Isla Nublar incident.

They arrived at the observation deck just as Rexy's handler tossed a flare into her paddock, landing next to a goat that was tethered to a post near the observation window.

For a while, nothing happened but then she emerged from the trees, fully revealing her massive body, the ground trembling with each of her titanic steps as she covered the distance to the goat, reared her head and sunk her powerful jaws into it, causing the visitors to crowd all over the glass to view the carnage that unfolded.

Zara felt someone tug at her shirt and looked down to see Gray excitedly jumping up and down pointing to the window.

"I can't see what going on, can you lift me up, Aunt Zara, please, please?!"

"Alright, up you go!" she said and lifted him up onto shoulders so he could see, hearing him scream with excitement at what he saw.

Behind them, Zach felt his pocket vibrate and pulled out his phone, the contact ID displaying MOM, "Hello."

"Hey Zach, how are things?" the boys' mother, Karen asked.

"We're ok, I guess, Aunt Claire gave us these special wristbands so we wouldn't have to wait in line."

"Wait, you mean she's not with you?" she said, brows furrowed in confusion.

"No, but Zara's with us, you want me to put her on?"

"Yes, thank you."

He went to her and tapped her shoulder, "Mom wants to talk to you."

Zara took the phone in her hand and put it up to her ear, "Hey, Karen, how are you?"

"I'm fine, nice to hear from you again, Zara."

"It's nice to hear from you too, Karen. So, what's up?"

"Well, I heard from Zach that Claire isn't there with you, is that true?"

"Yeah, about that…" she said sheepishly, hearing Karen sigh from the other end of the line.

"Just promise me you'll take care of the boys, alright? I'll call her myself."

In another part of the island, Claire was driving through the jungle when her phone rung, the caller ID displaying Karen. She picked up, the phone connecting the call to her cars Bluetooth.

"Hi there, Karen."

"Hi Claire, how are the boys doing?" Karen asked from the other end.

"Well, the boys are doing fine, they're having fun -"

"You're not with them are you?" she cut in accusingly, this was so typical of her.

Claire could only sigh at that, "I'm sorry, it's just today ended up being incredibly busy for me. But don't worry, I left them with Zara, and you know how much she loves spending time with the boys."

"I know, I talked to her a second ago. But Claire, it's like you're not even there for them anymore, this was supposed to be a family weekend and I thought just this once I could trust you with something," She said, tears springing to her eyes.

Claire swallowed hard at the distress in her sister's voice and replied, "I promise, tomorrow I'll clear my whole schedule and spend the whole day with them, I won't leave their side, I promise."

"You know a promise tomorrow is worth a lot less than trying today right?"

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Claire couldn't help but chuckle, "Oh my god, are you using mom's lines on me?"

"I am, aren't I? I'm sorry, but I have to tell you they work, you'll know when you have kids."

"I'll cross that bridge if I come to it, I suppose."

" _When_ , it's worth it."

"Goodbye, mom."

"Goodbye."

With that, Claire hung up and turned her attention back on the road.

Owen Grady was busy working on his bike, a 2006 865 CC Triumph Scrambler, near his lakeside villa. A former Navy Seal, INGEN selected him for his successful career training dolphins and brought him on to help with the raptors. But it wasn't just that, he knew what the end game was, they never told him but it was obvious, and from day one he dug his heels pretty deep anytime the words raptors and field test came from the guys upstairs.

His focus was halted when he saw the familiar sight of the park operations manager arrive in her Mercedes GLE. "What the hell do they want now?" he muttered to himself, taking a sip from his bottle of coke as he stood up, park guys never usually came down here unless it was for something dinosaur related, raptor or otherwise.

"Greetings, Mr. Grady." Claire said, a professional smile on her face as she exited the car and approached him, looking impeccable and proper as always, clothes and hair ironed to perfection, everything about her oozing precision, meticulousness and professionalism. Which made her contrast against him even more in his dirty oil soaked shirt, jeans and mud soaked shoes.

"Please Claire, you can drop the formalities, it's just Owen."

"Ok, _Owen."_

"So, what brings you down to my humble abode?" he said as he wiped his hands on a rag, tucking it into the back pocket of his pants.

"Well, we need you to come look at something," She said, "If you're not too busy."

"Oh, I'm pretty busy."

"It's about a new species we've made." Now that piqued his interest.

"Wait, you just went and made a new dinosaur?" he said as he went to his tool bench and grabbed a ratchet wrench. "Well, it's kind of what we do here," She stated as if it was a normal thing, "The exhibit opens in three months and Mr. Masrani wanted me to consult with you."

Owen turned to her, stepping closer, "You wanna consult here or in my bungalow?" he asked, voice lowering an octave at the last part.

Claire was nonplussed by the attempt however, shaking her head and shooting a frown back at him, "It's not funny."

He laughed slightly, a grin plastered on his face. "It's a little funny," he said as went up the stairs of his bungalow, going to the back to check his tool box.

"We'd like you to evaluate the paddock for vulnerabilities," She climbed the stairs halfway and stopped, hearing him reply, "Why me?"

"Well, I guess since Mr. Masrani thinks you can control the raptors-"

"See, it's all about control with you," He cut in as he returned, new wrench in hand, "I don't control the raptors. It's a relationship. It's based on mutual respect, that's why you and I never went on a second date."

"Excuse me, I never wanted a second date!" she said as he passed by on his way down.

"Who prints out an Itinerary for a night out?" he stated, sitting down to continue working on his bike.

"I'm an organized person!"

"Well, what kind of diet doesn't allow for tequila?"

"All of them actually!" Claire shot back, then took a deep breath and recomposed herself, "And besides, I'm already in a happy relationship, thank you very much."

"Makes me wonder how she puts up with you." he said while tightening some nuts and bolts.

"Can we just focus on the asset please?"

"The Asset?" he said, stopping work on his bike and standing up to face her. "Look, I get it, you have a lot of tough decisions to make and it's easier to imagine that these animals are all just numbers on a spreadsheet but you don't know what you have here, and from what I've been hearing, that animal you have is no ordinary dinosaur."

"Wait, how do you know all this?" she asked, curious to hear how he found about the Indominus.

"She told me," He says, taking the rag out of his back pocket to rub his hands on it.

"Who?"

"Zara, she told me about that little 'incident' you had last month. Now I don't know about you, but I've never heard of any kind of dinosaur that is that intelligent. She seemed to _enjoy_ making her squirm and attacked you again when you had your guard down, just for the sake of scaring you."

"I think you're overestimating its intelligence here, Owen," She said firmly.

He rebutted her with a firm shake of the head, "No, I think _you're_ the one underestimating what that animal is capable of. You can tell when a predator is about to attack you, it's in the eyes and the body language, and what she told me was that the animal had her sights zeroed in on her, she was ready to strike, coiled for an attack, but she didn't. She was playing mind games with her, not to hunt or drive people away from her territory, but just for the hell of it."

"And your point is?"

"My point is, that animal is more dangerous than you think she is."

"Then, I think you can understand our concern with the assets containment."

"Yeah, but the kind of control your attempting is dangerous, that dinosaur you made is an unpredictable, hyper aggressive killing machine and If there is one thing that working here has taught me it's that no matter how much control you exert, you can't contain and control life. It breaks free, it expands, painfully, maybe even dangerously, but in the end, life finds a way."

Claire simply chuckled at the quote from Ian Malcolm, "Really, you're giving me a lecture on Chaos Theory?"

"I'm just stating the facts, you created a hybrid dinosaur that you have absolutely no idea how it's going to behave and containing it is just going to make it worse," He said.

"Look Owen, we can argue here all day long but _I_ have a schedule to keep, so if you would please come with me," She walked by him, wincing when the smell of motor oil hit her. "And please, change into something more sensible, the asset is very sensitive to…Smell."

 _Coming up in the next chapter: More park fun times! And an appearance from a character who has also faced an invisible enemy in a jungle, so stay tuned._


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: Jurassic World and the Jurassic Park franchise are the property of Universal Studios, Michael Crichton, Steven Spielberg and Colin Trevorrow. I own nothing from this story aside from the plot.

 _Author's note: Hello again readers and welcome to another exciting installment of this story! Apologies if this is late but finals were a bit stressful on the old noggin so this came out a little bit later than expected.  
TigerCritic: Well, I do kind of agree with you, reading it again from the beginning, Zara and Claire's relationship does come off as a little bit shallow. I'll expand on their relationship a bit more in the later chapters but for now, I'm focusing more on the tour. Actually I did read that story before on AO3, I liked it aside from the ending._

 _Rockyrose13: Thanks for the encouragement! I think I did pretty well all things considered._

 _Kyranol1: Well, I'm a dude, so you can just call me dude I guess and it's all good, just don't go overboard. Good catch on that Predator reference, though it isn't Arnie's Dutch in this fic, sorry to disappoint. The character is from the same franchise but a lead from another Predator movie. Thanks for giving me a cool idea for a one shot I could write though._

 _For all the people who are wondering if Zara is going to end up as Mosasaur chow, don't worry, she's not. Maybe, probably, who's to say at this point?_

 _And thanks again to the regular reviewers Invader Johnny and Rockyrose13, and all of you readers for the faves and follows, it's awesome and seeing solid feedback really motivates me to write better._

 _As always, comments and constructive criticism are very much welcome, always looking for ways to improve and I always love reading the comments, once again this story is still self-proofread so any mistakes are my own. So now onto the story, hope you enjoy._

"The Mosasaurus rose late in the history of aquatic reptiles. The largest of the Mosasaur family, it lived alongside its cousin the ferocious Tylosaurus and the graceful and beautiful Elasmosaurus."

The Mosasaurus was one of the most impressive specimens the park had to offer. Clocking in at a monstrous 15 tons, she outclassed even the mighty T-Rex and could cut through the water at an astonishing 30 miles an hour if she ever got into the open ocean.

She was a big crowd pleaser of course, drawing thousands upon thousands of visitors when she was first unveiled to the public but as with any animal she came with her own set of problems. The first issue they faced was containing the animal, her tank had been constructed for a sixty foot long Mosasaur but she grew to almost eighty feet in a year and had to be placed in a temporary holding tank away from the main park while the engineers rebuilt it. Which was a big hit to the parks profits that year when all the preordered tickets had to be refunded.

The next problem came from the visitors, who found her boring, for lack of a better word. While attendance was never a problem for the feeding show, people still came in numbers to see it, but they found the animal herself to be lacking, feeling that she was a one trick pony and Visitor's rarely if ever wrote down the Mosasaur as their favorite attraction at the park in surveys.

But Zara always found the Mosasaur tank to be one of her most favorite exhibits in the park, finding the sight of the aquatic reptile drifting lazily in its crystalline waters relaxing and she often sat by herself on the stands late at night, either trying to get her work done or just staring into the tank to clear her mind, it was her own place of solitude.

But this time, she saw the creature in its full glory breaching the waters to feed on a shark carcass hanging overhead from a crane and the sight was awe inspiring, like an ancient leviathan emerging from the deep. The Mosasaur clamped down on the Great White with its massive jaws and dove back into the water, splashing everyone in the audience.

After drying off, the three of them went to one of the parks food kiosks to stop for lunch.

"So, where are we going after this?" Gray asked over a mouthful of fries, which came out sounding incoherent. Zach could only shake his head at his antics.

"Gray, please swallow your food first before you talk." She chided him.

He swallowed the fries down, then took a sip from his soda. "I'm sorry, what I meant to ask was where were going after this?"

"Well, let's see," she pulled out a park map and a pen from her handbag and began to inspect the attractions. "We've been to the petting zoo, the T-Rex kingdom and the Mosasaur tank," she said, crossing them off the map.

"We can't go on the Gyrosphere yet because Claire's wants to come along tomorrow to keep an eye on you two, and the aviary isn't until tomorrow as well.." she trailed off.

"So, what _can_ we do?" Zach asked.

"Well, it would be very remiss of me to not give you the full park experience while you're here, so I could arrange something today."

"Oooh, what is it, what is it?!" Gray asked, excited at what she had in store.

"Jeez Gray, can you stop acting like a kid for one second?" Zach grumbled. "So what are we going to do?"

"It's a surprise, but I take it both of you are interested?"

At the boys' nods, she told the boys to finish their lunch and stepped away for a while.

She had a call to make.

In the break room of the parks Asset Containment Unit headquarters, stood a tall, muscular ACU trooper of thirty seven. He was clad in the standard uniform: a dark blue Neptune pattern Vertx Kryptek gunfighter shirt, storm grey 5.11 Tactical vest, Charcoal 5.11 Stryker pants, a pair of storm grey 5.11 recon boots and various Velcro patches on his uniform: a large ACU on the front of the vest and an ACU Isla Nublar shield on the right shoulder.

The trooper added his own personal touches as well, eschewing the Neptune patterned baseball cap for a similarly patterned boonie hat, black and grey Giro Bravo fingerless gloves in place of the all black tactical gloves the rest used and a grey Condor tactical belt encircled his waist, which carried various pouches for his equipment.

His focus was currently on reassembling his gun, an Atchisson Assault automatic shotgun aka the AA-12. A marvel of modern firearm engineering. Made of stainless steel, the weapon required no cleaning, had no recoil from the spring system in its shoulder stock and had a monstrous firing rate of 300 rounds a minute. The only drawback to it was the firing rate meant the gun chewed through shells like nobody's business, finishing the standard 8 round box magazine in a matter of seconds on full auto.

His was customized, it had a drum magazine with a capacity of 32 rounds, firing solid slugs that could stop a rampaging bull elephant, a Surefire weapon light foregrip and was painted entirely in jungle camo.

But despite his love for the weapon, his job first and foremost, was to pacify the animals in a non-lethal manner, they did cost a pretty penny after all. So live rounds only came in as a last resort. He was just finished attaching the foregrip when his phone rang from inside his pocket, Long Tall Sally blaring from its speakers, He took it out and put it up to his ear.

"Hello," he said cheerfully.

"Hey Royce, Zara here."

"Ah, Miss Young, how can I be of service today?" He asked, always used to getting calls from her, being the more jovial and approachable member of the park's security force, she usually approached him whenever a VIP wanted a more up close and personal look at the dinosaurs that the parks attractions couldn't offer. He was fine with it for the most part, protocol did say that any special guests who wanted to venture outside the secure zone required ACU escort at all times.

What he didn't like was how lax the rules had gotten, it used to be a full squad escort, but when the animals proved to be relatively safe to deal with, upper management changed it to just one person. He was shocked to say the least when he heard this, they apparently forgot or didn't realize that these were still wild animals that they had to deal with, animals that could go off at the drop of a hat if provoked.

But despite the numerous complaints that he sent to that no good head of security of theirs, he always got the same damn reply, 'will put under consideration' and after 5 years of that, he just gave up. Still though, he loved the job, it was challenging work, out of doors and it always kept his mind sharp and on alert, so these kind of calls weren't entirely unpleasant.

"I need a tour arranged today, preferably an area with some of the more docile animals." Zara said.

"Alright, let's see." Royce pulled out a map of the park from his locker and inspected it "That'll put you somewhere in the valley, just sauropods, trikes and galli's there."

"Excellent, can you get ready and meet me at the west gate?"

"Sure, no problem."

The trooper hung up, then took his gun and brought it down with him to the armory, swiping his ID on the scanner to enter. Gun racks lined the interior. He took two drum magazines for his shotgun, storing one in a magazine pouch located on his belt and the other one in a metal gun case along with the weapon itself, locking it shut. He also took an M1911A1 pistol and a large machete, storing the gun in his thigh holster and storing the blade in a sheath on his belt.

Opening another gun locker, he grabbed a Lindstradt tranquillizer rifle, a standard issue gas propelled dart gun that was used by zoos to sedate animals and some dart magazines, loading one in the rifle and storing the rest in an ammo case. Slinging the rifle across his back, he took both cases and left the room, the doors sliding shut automatically behind him.

The trooper took the elevator down to the garage, which was filled with a dozen silver Mercedes-Benz G Class 4X4s with blue stripes running along the sides and adorned with the park logo. These were all gasoline powered and customized by Mercedes to handle the rough day to day operations the parks staff performed: the frame was made from reinforced steel, a roll cage was retrofitted to the interior of the car and they were equipped with a set of Pirelli run flat tires, INGEN spared no expense when they commissioned these.

He set the metal cases down near one of the cars, taking a mental note of the number 18 stamped on it and walked to the back.

In the corner were two jungle green six wheeled G63 AMG 6X6s. Royce moved past them, going to a key box to retrieve the keys for the car and walked back to it, unlocking it to store the cases and the rifle in the back of the vehicle.

He entered the driver's side, starting the car and driving out. But as he drove out of the building, he couldn't shake the bad feeling in his gut that told him something wasn't right today.

Meanwhile, Zara and the boys were walking through a maintenance alley, which the staff used to quickly get to any point in the park with little to no obstruction.

"Aunt Zara, when you mentioned that you were going to give us the full Jurassic World experience, I imagined there would be a lot more I don't know, _Dinosaurs,_ involved." Zach quipped behind her, having gotten tired of all the walking they were doing for the past 15 minutes.

She chose to ignore that and looked ahead, noticing that they arrived at the exit to the west gate. She scanned her staff ID to unlock the door and was pleasantly surprised to see Royce already there, leaning against the side of the car waiting for them.

"Royce, thank you so much for coming on such short notice." Zara said as she walked up to him.

"Well, it is what I'm paid to do," He replied, a cocky grin plastered on his face, "I'm guessing these two are the VIP's?" He looked over her shoulder to greet the two boys. "Hi there!"

"Yes, I'd like you to meet Zach and Gray, they're Claire's nephews." She turned to them to introduce him, "Boys, this is Royce, he's with the parks Asset Containment Unit and our security for the day."

The ACU trooper leaned forward slightly to shake their hands, smiling while he does so "Nice to meet you."

His smile disappeared as he delivered the pre-tour brief to them. "Before we get this show on the road, I'm going to lay down two major rules that you _have_ to follow," He said, locking eyes with the two of them.

"First rule is, these are wild animals, and caution is heavily advised. You might be safe in the park behind 15 inches of bulletproof glass, but when you're past that gate..." He pointed to the gate, a black rolling shutter door, it read: NO ENTRY, AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. "It's a jungle out there, and just because some of them are docile, don't do anything to provoke them, got it?"

They only nodded in response.

"Good, second rule. Each of you will need one of these ," he pulled out four devices from his front pocket, each about the size of a flash drive and handed it to the three of them, keeping one for himself, "These are personal tracking devices, so that the guys at HQ and the control room can keep track of us at all times."

"You clip it to your belt like so," he slid the tracker onto his belt. "And then turn it on," he continued, flicking the switch and checked his smartwatch, satisfied to see that all of the trackers were flashing on his tracker app, indicating that they were working.

"Now, if at any point one of you are separated from the group and/or face immediate danger, don't worry. All you have to do is press this button," he pointed to a red button at the center of the tracker "and the tracker will send out a distress signal, so just sit tight and we'll come looking for you."

"So, anyone have any questions before we set off?" It was mostly aimed at the boys, this being their first time and all.

Gray's hand immediately shot up, "What are we gonna do exactly?"

Royce walked up to him and squatted down so he was at eye level with the boy, "Well my friend, what you are about to experience is a close encounter of the prehistoric kind."

That seemed to pique the boy's interest, even his older brother was intrigued, so he continued, "You and your brother are one of the very few people that are going to be given an unfiltered view of the park's amazing specimens, no bulletproof glass, no fences, just you and the dinosaurs, up close and personal, now doesn't that sound exciting?"

The boys, could only respond with an excited "uh-huh."

Royce smiled and clapped them on the shoulder enthusiastically, "Then what are we waiting here for? Let's go!"

He stood and walked to the car, opening the rear passenger door so the boys could enter. He then got into the driver's seat, starting the car as Zara entered the passenger side.

"I'm gonna have to call this in first," he told her and picked up the cars radio mic from the radio console and spoke into it, "This is Predator 2-1 to control, requesting permission to leave the secure zone, passengers are two guests and one staff member, over."

"This….park…leave….over."

"Come again, control?"

"This…..control…over." the voice again came out garbled and was filled with static so the trooper tried changing the frequency and repeated the message only to be greeted again by static. He gave up and hung the microphone back on the hook.

"What's wrong?" Zara asked.

He turned to her, "Oh nothing really, the radios busted. I'll just fill in a work order when we get back, for now I'll just have to use my normal one."

The trooper reached down to grab the handheld radio from his belt and said the same message again, this time the answer came more clearly.

"This is control to 2-1, you are cleared for exit, raising the gate for you now."

"Roger that control, over and out."

The black metal gate raised itself, revealing a lush tropical rainforest, "Hold on to your butts," he said as he put the car into gear and drove off into the green wilderness.

 _A major plot element throughout the movie is how some of the park staff have become way too overconfident regarding some of the parks failings. Hell, when you have Pachys regularly breaking their shock implants and busting out of their enclosure, that's a major security problem. But Claire just seemed annoyed by it. I added a little bit of that in with the broken radio, Royce could go back to the garage and get a new car with a working radio, but that's a lot of work and this was just another routine tour, what's the worst that could happen? Right?_


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: Jurassic World and the Jurassic Park franchise are the property of Universal Studios, Michael Crichton, Steven Spielberg and Colin Trevorrow. I own nothing from this story aside from the plot.

 _Author's note: Greetings readers! Thanks so much for the reviews for the last chapter and apologies for the delay for this one, just found a hard time writing this one but I digress. Hope you all enjoy this chapter._

 _Comments, criticism and suggestions are always welcome, I always love reading them. This story is still self-proofread so any mistakes are my own._

The vehicle stopped at a security checkpoint, ahead was a thick metal door marked V02 in bold white lettering. Next to the car was an ID scanner, Royce fished out his staff ID from his pocket and swiped it.

The gate raised itself to reveal the wide open space of the valley, an open grassy plain so the herbivores could roam freely. Once the gate raised itself fully, he put his foot on the gas pedal and drove in.

They stopped near the outcrop of a hill, in the rear passenger seat, Gray was scanning the surroundings for any sign of activity, seeing nothing but trees and the open plains, then something caught his eye.

To the left of the car, some distance away, he saw a single trunk with no leaves or branches, just a single curving stump. Then as it lifted itself up and moved forwards, the boy realized it wasn't a trunk at all, it was an animal's foot. Lowering the window to get a better view, he leaned himself out of the car and looked up and _up_. He was looking at the graceful, curving neck of an enormous sauropod rising high into the air.

He was looking at the mighty Brachiosaurus.

His mind was in awe as he gazed at the creature feeding from the treetops; the pictures and documentary footage never did justice to the majesty of this titan from a bygone era, to the fluidity and grace of its movements. In his excitement, he leaned back into the car and kept tugging at his older brother's jacket to get him to look.

"So yeah, I'm at my aunt's theme park right now, yeah it's the one with all the dinosaurs." The tugging wasn't working, so he dragged Zach by the jacket, bringing him closer to the window.

"Gray, hey Gray, what is it, whaa….," His mouth opened wide in shock," Babe, I'm gonna have to call you back." The phone slipped from his grasp and landed on the floor with a thud as he stared outside the window.

Gray, eager to see it closer, quickly opened the door and exited the vehicle, his eyes focused on the gigantic creature that was only a few feet away, the ground trembling with each step it took.

"It's a Brachiosaur!" He pointed excitedly.

Zach followed behind him, gasping at the sight, "She was my favorite dinosaur when I was a kid, now I see her and she's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

He felt dizzy, as if the ground suddenly became too steep. He had trouble getting his breath. This was a creature he saw numerous times, through pictures and books but seeing it here, in person, it was something else entirely.

Zara could only smile at the sight as she came up to them, it was always so wonderful to see how people reacted to being up close to these animals, how their eyes would widen, mouths agape as they stared at these leviathans from the past, it was magical.

'If only Claire were here to see this...' she thought, feeling a sudden pang of longing in her heart.

For a moment, her smile faltered and she could only sigh, whispering, "Yeah, if only…", but she regained her composure and continued walking to the two boys. Her personal problems could wait.

"This has got what, a twenty five, twenty seven foot neck?" Zach asked as she came up behind them.

"Thirty five actually."

"Thirty five…." He whispered, simply amazed at the height of the creature before him.

Next, it reared up on its hind legs to feed from the tallest branch, something showcased in all of the park's commercials but seeing it in person felt different somehow, a creature this massive being able to do this and it was right in front of him, the feeling was indescribable.

The sauropod lowered itself, its front feet sending a tremor as they came to back to the ground. It peered at the group cautiously, then let out a gentle trumpeting sound, much like an elephant would.

"Zach and Gray, welcome to Jurassic World!" Zara said as she looked ahead, into the valley.

Across the plains, Gray could see a herd of Stegosaurs moving to the bank of a lake, their spiked tails raised high into the air. Behind them a flock of Gallimimus ran past the herd, weaving in between the larger dinosaurs and a pair of Brachiosaurs stood near the lake, bellowing softly to each other, the sight was incredible.

A moment later, the head of a Triceratops appeared from the foliage, its immense size and gray hide making it similar to that of an elephant but with the stance of a rhino, it had a magnificent fanned crest and two menacing horns above its eyes with a third shorter horn on its snout.

When it didn't move further, Zara tried to gently coax the herbivore out of its hiding place, "Come on girl, there's nothing to be afraid of, we won't hurt you."

Slowly but surely, it worked and the dinosaur approached the group cautiously, head low as its eyes darted back and forth, footsteps slow and deliberate.

She touched its head when it stopped in front of them. "That's a good girl," the Triceratops leaned into her touch and it let her hand caress the side of its face, the animal giving a low rumble as her hand travelled down to its beaky mouth.

She turned to the boys and waved them over, "It's safe, she won't hurt us."

They approached the massive animal and touched her cautiously, as if the animal would go off at any second but the Triceratops continued to stay still as they put their hands on her head.

As the boys interacted with the dinosaur, Zara recalled a quote from an interview with Ellie Sattler, the paleo botanist that was present during the Jurassic Park incident, about a conversation she had with John Hammond.

 _"John had a grand vision for the park, he told me that he wanted something that wasn't an illusion, something that felt_ _ **real**_ _. Something you could see and_ _ **touch**_ _..."_

She thought that maybe this was what the park was missing, a sense of intimacy and closeness to the animals themselves, feeling that there was a degree of separation with some of the parks attractions, that you were so close yet so far from these majestic beasts.

Suddenly, Zach noticed something nipping at his shoes and looked down. He saw a small dark green dinosaur squatting on its hind legs, staring at him with a pair of beady eyes.

He instantly recognized what this dinosaur was, it was a Compsognathus.

The teen couldn't help but smile as it hopped around his feet, still staring at him with those beady little eyes, "Beautiful, aren't they?" Zara asked as she stood behind him.

"Is it dangerous?" He asked.

"No, Compys are perfectly harmless."

He bent down, the palm of his hand outstretched. The animal hopped onto it and he brought it up to his face, the compy felt very light, almost weightless and from this close he could see her coloration in even more detail. The skin was a vibrant green that faded to a dull yellow and it had dark green stripes that ran across its back all the way to the tail.

"Hey there buddy, aren't you the cutest little thing?"

The dinosaur sniffed at Zach, then rubbed her head against his neck, he couldn't help but giggle.

"I think she wants you to feed her," Zara said with a smile.

"What does she eat?" Gray asked as he came up to them, the Triceratops having left the group to wander into the plains.

"Usually small insects, rats and dead animals, think of them like jackals. They're scavengers."

"Hang on, I might have something," She added as she reached into her purse and brought out a small piece of beef jerky, putting it in Zach's unoccupied hand. He put it up to the compy's face, she cautiously sniffed the piece of dried meat before darting forward and grabbing it with her jaws.

The dinosaur swallowed the jerky and squealed happily at him, then burrowed her head against his neck again. Gray cautiously approached his brother, afraid to startle the creature that sat in the palm of his hand. Zach noticed his hesitance and motioned for him to come closer, gently grabbing his hand and lowering it onto the dinosaur's back slowly, Gray smiling in amazement as he stroked the compy's body.

For moment as the boys interacted with the animal, Zara saw the two small children that she'd sometimes tuck into bed at night, regaling them with stories of her time working at the park. Back then, they were always so happy, so carefree and now they were forced to grow up too fast.

Guilt stabbed at her heart as she remembered that she was supposed to keep the boys entertained and happy for the weekend before they returned home to face their parents' separation but sadly, that situation was out of her control.

Out of nowhere, a rustling sound came from a nearby bush as several compys jumped out. They observed the group for a while before running away which caused the animal in Zach's hand to run off and join them. But something was off, the pack of dinosaurs were running alongside the fence.

"It's like they're looking for something," Royce said as he walked past him, pulling out a pair of binoculars. Looking through them, he took note of the way the dinosaurs' heads darted back and forth as they sprinted across the field and looked ahead of the pack.

"Interesting…" He muttered.

"What?" Zara asked.

"Take a look for yourself…." He said, passing the binoculars to her.

She pushed her sunglasses onto her head and looked through them.

"You see that part of the paddock? Notice something off about it?"

"Well I'll be damned..."

A mile away from them, the metal gate to the restricted area was left wide open. The latch securing it was bent inward, as if something rammed through it.

"Should we check it out?" She said, lowering the binoculars from her face and slipping her sunglasses back on.

The trooper shrugged, "Your call, but I think it should be safe enough. The animals have shock tags installed so they can't come near the fences anyway."

"Well, I suppose there's no harm in it." She said.

"Ok, then let's get going."

The group made their way back to the car, the two boys animatedly discussing with Zara about their experience.

Once they arrived, the four of them disembarked and slowly approached the security gate. Royce took point, tranquilizer rifle aimed squarely at the jungle ahead for threats.

When he was sure that the area was secure, he slung the rifle across his back and closely examined the damage done to the lock.

"So, what do you think happened?" Zara asked.

"Well, from the looks of it, something hard and fast hit the latch hard enough to break it in two. So, I can safely assume it was from a Pachycephalosaurus."

"How could that happen?" Zach asked, he thought the animals couldn't come near the fences without being shocked.

Zara chimed in, "Well, the pachys like to butt heads with each other over territory and that usually shorts out their chips."

Royce nodded, "You're right, HQ received a report three hours ago that said there was a pachy roaming outside his zone, so this probably was from that incident." The three of them turned concerned looks to him, so he continued, "Just relax, it was sedated and returned to its habitat so we have nothing to worry about."

"So why hasn't the gate been fixed yet?" Zara asked.

He could only shrug, "Your guess is as good as mine."

"What's in there?" asked Gray, peering curiously into the jungle.

"Nothing much really, just some of the infrastructure from the old park and dinos that aren't ready for public viewing." Royce said.

"Whoa! That sounds awesome, can we go, can we go?" Zach and Gray said at the same time, peering up at Zara hopefully.

She considered it for a while, weighing the pros and cons of it in her head before saying, "Oh alright, it should be nothing more than a walk in the park, right Royce?"

"Yeah, sure." He said somewhat hesitantly, taking one last look at the jungle before walking back to the car, the rest of the group in tow.

 _Oooh, ahhh, that's how it always starts. Then later there's running and screaming._


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: Jurassic World and the Jurassic Park franchise are the property of Universal Studios, Michael Crichton, Steven Spielberg and Colin Trevorrow. I own nothing from this story aside from the plot. **  
**

 _Comments, criticism and suggestions are always welcome, I always love reading them. This story is still self-proofread so any mistakes are my own._

Once the car made it clear of the foliage, they came across an old paved road. Parts of it were covered in undergrowth but the metal track running through it was unmistakable, this was the one used in the original park tour.

Zara turned to the two boys in the back seat, "And here we are, you're looking at what used to be the greatest theme park in the history of the world."

"Doesn't look like much..." Zach said, looking around. He could only some trees and a bit of road.

"Well, not all of it was preserved. The new park uses a lot of space that was part of the old one, but they did manage to keep a few things, like this road. It's the exact same one used in the original tour. The metal trackway running through the middle here guided the remote tour cars."

"Whoa, really? That's amazing!" Gray said excitedly.

"It is isn't it? And I think we're coming up on our next monument right about now." She said.

Up ahead, there was a massive stone arch, it was weathered and overgrown with vines and the wooden gate was gone, long since harvested to be used for the current one but no one could mistake the sign at the center of it. Though the color faded over the years it still clearly read: JURASSIC PARK in red lettering, outlined with yellow.

At the back of her mind, Zara could almost hear Richard Kiley saying Welcome to Jurassic Park as they passed through it.

The SUV passed through a grove of trees, prehistoric cycads and ginkgoes stood next to more modern trees such as pine and fir trees. Gray noticed that the old electric fences were left standing, though the poles and wires were now rusted and sagged due to the extreme elements they endured and some sections were collapsed entirely.

Royce stopped the car near a section of road, where a break in the trees provided the group a clearer view of the jungle, to the right some distance away were a pair of Dilophosaurus, currently eating from the corpse of an animal.

"If you look to the right, you'll see a herd of the first dinosaurs on our tour, called Dilophosaurus," Royce said, doing an impression of the late Richard Kiley as he looked at the beautiful but deadly dinosaurs.

"Didn't know you could do impressions," Zara said, eyebrow raised questioningly.

He could only shrug, "Who knows, maybe if the ACU thing doesn't work out, I could go into acting."

"Sweet, Dilophosaurs!" Gray grinned from behind the window, face pressed against the glass. Only the head area of the dinosaur was visible from behind the carcass but it was enough to pique his interest. Two Large crests ran along the top of the head from the eyes to the nose. The crests made a V shape above the dinosaur's head and were green with a black stripe that had a white outline. Their mouths were filled with rows of sharp teeth, gleaming ruby red with blood.

Near the neck, he saw a collar of loose skin that lay flush against it. This was the frill that extended when the animal would spit its venom when hunting.

When the pair noticed the tour group, they stopped eating and gave a series of squeals and hoots to each other, like owls.

"What are they doing?" Zach whispered.

"I think they're trying to figure out if we're a threat," Royce said.

The hooting continued, drifting towards them through the afternoon air.

"Is it safe for them to be here? The broken gate is just a mile away, they could break out."

"They won't, the Dilophosaurs never move outside of the restricted area and besides, I don't think poison spit can do much against an angry Brachiosaur." Zara reassured him.

The dinosaurs stopped calling to each other and slowly approached the car, spreading their frills open wide in a threatening gesture, the vibrant red and yellow coloration a stark contrast against the green jungle around them, their frills rattled while they screeched at the vehicle.

"I think that's our cue to leave."

Royce put the car into gear and drove off further into what remained of the old park.

* * *

Back in the control room, everyone was in full blown panic. It was only mere minutes after the wholesale slaughter of the ACU team that was sent to capture the Indominus and the control room was already in chaos as staff members scrambled back and forth across their consoles trying to get the situation under control.

They were only into phase one of park shutdown and already numerous complaints from the operators about angry guests began pouring in from the Gyrosphere valley and the Cretaceous Cruise.

Claire stood next to Lowery's console, nervously pacing back and forth. She felt as if the weight of the world were on her shoulders. As operations manager, the staff looked to her for what they would do next but right now, the stress of the situation was taking its toll.

An ACU squad massacred, the Indominus was running loose, the park was going to be in chapter 11 by the next morning and everything landed squarely on her. She was going to go jail and Zara was going to be alone. Then her eyes widened and she gasped as realization struck her, her girlfriend and her nephews were still in the park, the three of them were in danger.

Hurriedly, Claire pulled out her phone and punched in Zara's number. She needed to know if they were alright.

"Come on, pick up, pick up."

The phone dialed twice before she heard Zara pick up on the other end of the line.

"Hello?" Zara said.

She breathed a sigh of relief, Zara was okay.

"Zara, are the boys with you?"

"I'll do you one better." She could hear her move the phone away and say, "Boys, Claire's on the phone, say hi!"

A chorus of "Hi Aunt Claire!" reached Claire's ear.

She heard Zara put the phone back to her ear, saying, "Did that answer your question?"

"Ok, I need you to take the boys and get back to the hotel right away. It's an emergency, the Indominus broke containment and it's headed for the park."

"Claire, hello, you're breaking up, hello."

"Zara, Zara? Can you hear me?"

"We're near the valley."

Then the line went dead.

In the car, Zara couldn't make out what Claire said, all she could hear was boys, back to hotel, and emergency.

"So, what did she say?" Zach asked.

Sighing, she turned to the two of them. She really didn't want to be the bearer of bad news and the boys were having such a good time.

"I'm afraid we'll have to cut the tour short. Claire told me to take the both of you back to the hotel, said it was some kind of emergency."

"Aww man." Gray groaned.

Zach cut in, trying to reassure his brother "Hey, I'm sure Aunt Claire wouldn't do this unless it was a serious emergency, right?"

"Of course and don't worry, we'll pick the tour back up tomorrow." She reassured them, then turned to Royce, "You know a shortcut to the park from here?"

"Yeah, there's a gate to the Cretaceous Cruise up ahead. From there, it's just a short drive to the east gate, then I'll drop you guys off at the hotel, shouldn't be more than a half hour drive."

* * *

"Zara? Zara! No, this can't be happening." Claire frantically redialed the number again, fear rising in her chest with every dial, hoping that Zara would pick up but to her dismay, the phone replied, "The number you have dialed is not reachable."  
She dialed again.

"The number you have dialed is out of coverage area."

She rushed to Lowery's station, "Lowery, can you check the valley, are all the gyrospheres accounted for?"

"Yeah, all Gyrospheres have returned to their stations."

 _Thank god,_ she thought.

Then her head snapped up, "But wait, the Gyrospheres only seat two, and we weren't supposed to go on them till tomorrow, how can they be in the valley?"

Lowery swiveled in his chair to face her, "Well, there was a car that went in there half an hour ago, could be them."

"Wait, what?"

"Yeah, I think it was for a tour." He said, calmly taking a sip of his soda.

"And I'm hearing this now because?" She tapped her foot impatiently and waited for an answer, giving him a pointed glare.

Lowery flinched and sunk further into his chair, "Umm…..you were checking the Indominus paddock at the time, remember?"

She took a deep breath and exhaled, trying to keep herself calm, he was right.

"Ok, can you remember the vehicle number? I need to check the camera to be sure that it's them."

"Yeah, hold on a sec." He pulled up the vehicle cams and began sifting through the footage, searching for the vehicle in question.

Claire meanwhile, tried calling the ACU garage to see if they had any info on the ranger that took the car.

A cheerful New Jersey accented voice greeted her, "ACU Garage, Coop speaking." That was the ACU's head mechanic, Harold Cooplowski. Better known by his nickname Coop.

"Mr. Cooplowski, do you mind if I ask you a few questions?"

"Sure bosslady, what can I do you for?"

Claire groaned at the nickname, pinching her nose in frustration. Coop had a severe disregard for the rules. One time she caught him trying to toast bread with a blowtorch of all things, but he was one of the best mechanics in the world and the troopers enjoyed his jolly nature so she let it slide, and right now she had more pressing matters to focus on.

"Did anyone happen to take a car out of the garage around half an hour ago?"

"Yeah, I saw someone drive out of the garage when I went out for lunch."

"Oh, can you identify who it was?"

She heard him scratch his head in thought for a few seconds before replying, "I think it was Royce."

The name was familiar enough to her, there was a trooper named that Zara always used to escort all those VIP tours, but she had to be sure.

"Royce, do you mean Adrien Royce? Tall, black hair, used to be in the military, that Royce? "

"The very same."

"Did he happen to have any passengers?"

"Don't think so."

She continued, "How about the car number, did you see that?"

"Ummm…..I'm not sure, think it ended in an eight, but that's all I have. I just happened to glance at it when it drove out."

"That's alright Mr. Cooplowski, thanks for your help."  
"No problem, Boss." He said before dropping the phone back into its cradle, ending the call.

The operations manager turned back towards Lowery, who was currently looking through the camera footage on his command console.

"Lowery, we have a lead. Can you look for a ranger named Adrien Royce?"

"Ok, checking all the scanners." The technician began scrolling through the ID scanner history.

"Here it is, Adrien Royce, his ID was last used to enter the valley thirty minutes ago." Then he continued, "And the car he took was number G18."

"Bring up the interior camera." She had a sinking feeling in her stomach, expecting the worst to show up on the main screen.

To her relief the camera showed that they were okay, but that sense of dread crept into her again as she realized that they were still out in the open. She needed to get them out of there, fast.

With that in mind, she walked over to Vivian's console.

"Vivian, send a team of rangers to the valley, we need to bring them in."

The blonde technician nodded and contacted the ACU headquarters.

"Security, we need a search and rescue team in the valley."

"It's gonna be a while, we have our hands full here." the operator spoke in a rush, a flurry of activity could be heard in the background.

Something inside Claire snapped.

She had enough problems on her plate and this was the last thing she wanted to deal with. The park manager angrily grabbed an earpiece and put it up to her ear, "NO NO NO, there's a tour group missing, you need to make this your TOP priority, do you hear me?!"

"Ma'am, there are a lot of guests missing, we're doing everything we can."

"GODDAMN IT!" she screamed and flung the earpiece into a corner of the room, chest heaving and nostrils flaring with rage. Her eyes glared at the broken device intensely as if it personally offended her.

An uneasy silence fell across the control room as all the personnel turned their eyes to her, not used to seeing the normally calm and controlled park manager this angry before. The stress of the situation seemed to affect her more that she let on, this was the first visible sign of rage they saw from her in years.

When she realized that everyone in the room was looking at her, Claire took deep breaths and clenched her fists open and closed to calm herself, mind racing a mile a minute as she tried to solve her current situation.

Then she heard a familiar voice coming from the main screen and looked up to see Owen yelling at a security guard who was demanding to see his ID.

Relief flooded through her. That was it! Owen could help her look for them. He was a Navy SEAL, used to traversing extreme terrain and would know how to track someone, and he was good friends with Zara so that meant he _had_ to help her. Claire calmly walked out of the control room, the staff quickly resuming their work as if her outburst never occurred.

* * *

The car screeched to a halt.

"Sorry." Royce said.

In front of them was a Mercedes Sprinter, one of the vehicles used to transport ACU squads. It was turned on its side, torn open by something. It was also blocking the road and that meant they couldn't go anywhere until it was moved, the undergrowth here was too thick to traverse.

"What the hell happened here?" He asked, looking ahead.

"Looks like something big attacked it, a carnivore maybe," Zach said.

Zara replied, "No, we don't house any of the larger predators here." As far as she recalled, the only large carnivore here was the Indominus. A shiver went down her spine at the thought of it escaping, recalling the last time she encountered the dinosaur.

"Was it one of the herbivores?"

"No, those look like claw marks." She said.

"Whatever it is, it's blocking our way. I'm going to check it out." Royce exited the car, taking the tranq rifle with him and took stock of their surroundings. The air around him felt hot and humid, a thin layer of mist hung in the air, insects chittered and there were trees all around, typical atmosphere for a tropical jungle.

Ahead, he could see the dirt road used by the park staff to travel around the restricted area, and walked over to the wrecked vehicle, rifle trained on the area ahead, dirt crunching underfoot.

The group was so focused on the trooper as he made his way to the wreck that they did not notice the camouflaged Indominus pushing a tree with its head, sending it crashing down onto the path behind the vehicle with. Then it quickly and silently disappeared back into the jungle.

All heads turned towards the fallen tree. Royce snapped his attention to it, gun sweeping left and right for threats. Minutes passed but nothing happened, the ambience of the jungle continuing despite the momentary intrusion.

Once he was sure that the area was clear, he relaxed his grip on the rifle. He pointed it down, took a deep breath and cursed to himself. That was the only other way out of the restricted area. But, there was nothing he could do about it now so he pressed on to the sprinter.

As the trooper clambered over the side of the vehicle, he could see the tear more clearly. Bending down to examine it further, he ran his hand over one of the three horizontal slashes that ran from the top of the vehicle to the bottom, it was caused by a large predator alright.

The Baryonyx was the only likely culprit, it had the claws that could have caused the damage but it was housed in the Cretaceous Cruise, there was no way it escaped. The only other answer was the Indominus but he was there when ACU tested the fences yesterday, the concrete and electric barrier was rock solid. It couldn't have escaped, could it?

Ahead of the vehicle, he saw a set of tire tracks leading away from the scene, which meant this ACU team came in two vehicles. But if one group made it, what happened to the other?

"I have a bad feeling about this." He muttered.

The trooper clambered down from the vehicle and began inspecting the tire tracks ahead of it. The tracks were still wet, so the attack happened pretty recently.

He picked up his radio, pressing the talk button and spoke into it. He had to tell the control room about this.

"This is Predator 2-1 to control, come in control."

Inside the control room, Vivian's head snapped up as she heard the message coming through her earpiece.

"This is Predator 2-1, requiring immediate assistance. Currently stranded in the restricted area with three passengers. We have a wrecked vehicle and a downed tree blocking our exits, over."

The name sounded familiar to her, wasn't that the call sign of the ranger that brought Zara and Claire's nephews into the valley? Out of curiosity, she opened the ranger tracker program on her console and went to Royce, A.

She gasped at what came up on the main screen, he was at the location of Hamada's ACU team. Fear rose in her chest, She had to get them out of there. The technician hurriedly contacted his radio.

"Predator 2-1 this is control, leave the area immediately—I repeat turn around and leave immediately. Do not investigate further, over." She spoke urgently, hoping the message got through.

But unfortunately, the jungles of Isla Nublar were notorious for having poor reception, so only a few words got through to his radio, punctuated by static.

"…..Immediately…..investigate further…."

"Come again, control?"

"…Investigate….further."

"Negative control, I have civilian passengers, we require _immediate_ evac, over."

He released the radio's talk button, but this time no answer came out, just static.

"….."

"Control, come in."

"….."

"This is Predator 2-1 to control, require immediate exfil—I repeat we require _immediate_ exfil, do you copy control?"

In the control room, Vivian groaned and dropped her head onto the command console in frustration, stupid signal issues.

* * *

"Spared no expense my ass," Royce sighed, storing the radio in its pouch. Management knew that the jungle had bad reception and yet they still hadn't fixed it.

With nothing else to do, the trooper walked back to the passenger side of the SUV, Zara exited the car and closed the door, eyeing him curiously.

"What's going on?" she whispered, not wanting to alarm the boys.

"Looks like we're not going anywhere for the moment."

"Why not?"

"Seems like control won't send out a team until they know the area is secure."

"What?!" She said, utterly bewildered.

He put his hands up in a defensive gesture, "Calm down, it'll just be a quick sweep. I go in, tell Control what happened and before you know it, we'll be back in the park."

She looked at him doubtfully, something really didn't feel right about all this. It's as if they were walking into a trap.

"You trust me, don't you?" he said.

The British woman stared at him for a few seconds, analyzing the situation in her mind. He always made the right calls before, what reason would she have to doubt him now?

She could only sigh, "Alright, you're the expert. But I really don't like this, we're Putting Claire's nephews in danger."

"I don't like it as much as you do either, ok? But orders are orders, and I'm sure whatever it is, it should be nothing I can't handle."

In the rear passenger seat, the two boys looked at them, curious as to what they were talking about.

The trooper went to the rear of the SUV, opening the trunk to take out the case containing his AA-12 and unlocked the latches securing it. Once it was open, he picked up the weapon, snapped the drum magazine into place and unlocked the safety. He pulled back on the charging handle and it chambered a round with a satisfying click.

Royce closed the trunk and went back to the driver side of the vehicle and opened the door, flipping a switch next to the steering wheel that activated the car's invisible fence system.

"Ok, now no animal can come within 15 feet of this vehicle without getting shocked."

"So, we're supposed to just wait here while you go investigate?" She said as she entered the passenger side of the vehicle.

"That's the plan, I'll be right back in a sec." He said, a confident grin spread across his face.

With that, the trooper closed the door and walked off into the jungle, shotgun drawn and aimed forward. The passengers watched him closely as he disappeared further and further into the brush before disappearing from view entirely.

But Gray wasn't focused on Royce, he was staring at a particularly high spot of the jungle, near a tree. Was it just his imagination or did that leaf just _blink_?


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: Jurassic World and the Jurassic Park franchise are the property of Universal Studios, Michael Crichton, Steven Spielberg and Colin Trevorrow. I own nothing from this story aside from the plot.

 _Author's note: Hello again readers! Apologies for the lateness of this chapter but I've been bogged down with work lately and couldn't find the time to read through it so I sent it to a couple of friends for beta reading, but now its done and I hope its worth the wait. I'm already halfway through the next chapter, so if all goes well, it'll be out by Halloween. And thank you so much again for all the reviews, the faves and the follows, you guys are awesome!_

 _Comments, criticism and suggestions are always welcome, I always love reading them. Feel free to point out any mistakes, grammatical or otherwise._

After a few minutes into his trek through the jungle, Royce began to see the telltale signs of an attack. Nothing completely obvious, but noticeable nonetheless.

It was his jungle training as a Ranger that made him notice it, Rangers were supposed to keep their senses sharp and alert in case of traps or ambushes. Once he started examining the surroundings, the signs became a lot clearer.

A trampled section of undergrowth here, broken branches on a tree there and a faint coppery scent permeated the air. These were small things that would escape the notice of a normal person but to him, it was enough to put the hairs on the back of his neck on end.

Something didn't feel right about this place.

Back in the car, Zara was happily discussing with the two boys about what activities they were going to do the next day, completely unaware of the danger that lurked outside.

As the trooper ventured deeper in, more obvious signs of the attack began to show. The leaves on some of the bushes were speckled with blood, fresh blood from the looks of it, and footprints, human and dinosaur were strewn about the forest floor.

So they came in and came out the same way, pursued by whatever creature that attacked the Sprinter. The coppery scent was a lot stronger here as well and that made him tighten his grip on the gun. He was getting close alright.

A few feet ahead, he saw a discarded taser rifle, a weapon that fired supercharged electric darts to stun the dinosaurs. The weapon was still active, humming with a low whine when he picked it up, the person who left it behind must have been in a real hurry. Further examination of the rifle revealed that the grip was slick with blood, dripping steadily onto the forest floor.

 _They went after this thing with non lethals…_

The thought of it made him shiver in fear, ACU troopers were the best of the best, having a ninety nine percent success rate at capturing the animals non-lethally. But this predator had some of them running scared.

"Whatever it was did a real number on these guys," He muttered grimly.

That tranquilizer rifle suddenly felt like dead weight.

* * *

Claire frantically ran down the steps of the innovation center, once she arrived at the bottom, she swiveled her head left and right to find any trace of where Owen went but she couldn't find him among the people that now crowded the building.

"Claire!"

She turned around at the familiar voice and breathed a sigh relief at the sight of the raptor handler coming towards her.

"Owen, I need your help," She said as he came close to her.

"Ok, what happened?"

"ZaraandmynephewsareoutinthevalleyandIfanythinghappenstothem, I-I-I," She babbled, stammering near the end.

"Whoa, calm down and back up for a second, what happened?" He said, voice firm as he put a hand on Claire's shoulder to try and calm her down.

She took several breaths to recompose herself and explained the situation to him again, "Zara's taking my nephews for a tour of the park, right now they're stuck in the valley and I can't contact them. The phones and radios aren't working, I don't know what to do and if anything happened to them…" She trailed off, tears welling up in her eyes.

He immediately nodded, "Ok, Let's go."

* * *

Farther into the jungle, near a small stream of water, a horrifying scene of blood and carnage stood before him, the bodies of the ACU team sent in here lay broken and battered. Some lay perfectly still on their backs, mouths and eyes open in silent horror at what they had faced while one was floating face down in the water, turning the clear pool into a murky red.

Another one was too mangled to identify, just a collection of flesh and shredded clothing, as if some animal had chewed it up and spat it out.

He heard a groaning noise coming from his right, turning his attention to it and found Lee, another trooper. He was sitting back against a tree, blood oozed from three large holes on the right side of his uniform, turning it a dark shade of red.

The former Ranger ran up to him and began inspecting his wounds, the other trooper was relieved and surprised to see him.

"Royce, what the hell are you doing here?" He wheezed out.

"I'm escorting some VIPs through this area, got blocked by that sprinter," Royce began applying pressure to the wound, hoping to stop the blood flow, "How bad is it?"

"Internal bleeding, a punctured lung and I think I broke a couple of ribs."

"I need to get you out of here."

"But back up for a sec, you have civvies with you? You need to get the hell out of here man…" Lee sputtered, gripping tightly onto Royce's sleeve and coughing out spats of blood.

"Come on, stay with me, "The other trooper pulled out his radio and contacted the control room, "Control, this is Predator 2-1. I have one survivor, critically injured and requiring immediate medivac, over."

The only answer he received was static.

Lee chuckled weakly, coughing up more blood, "If it was that easy, I'd be outta here by now, you know?" He said, voice shaking from the pain.

"What happened here?"

"It was a trap, and we fell right into it. It can camouflage…." He began hyperventilating, his body couldn't hold out much longer.

Royce's eyebrows furrowed in confusion, "You're not making any sense, what attacked you?"

"Please god, let me live, I don't want to die here."

"Keep it together man, what happened?"

Just before succumbing, Lee muttered two words that made his blood run cold.

"C-code nine…"

* * *

"NINETEEN! We have a code nineteen, you have to get out of there now!" The radio crackled, Claire's voice screaming through it.

That made her blood run cold, nineteen was the code number used for the Indominus escaping its paddock.

Before Zara could respond, the ground trembled with the footfalls of a mighty animal, making the car wobble on its suspension.

She scanned the side of the jungle, trying to see what it was. The trees ahead of them rustled with movement then a part of the jungle seemed to change color, from a dark green to a startling bone white. She swept her head upwards—

And there, peeking over the edge of the trees was the massive head of the Indominus Rex.

The animal stood stock still beyond the foliage, it was just standing there, looking at the vehicle. Its eyes were narrowed, focused like a sniper eyeing a target.

It was standing not more than sixteen feet away from the car, watching, and waiting.

"Aunt Zara, we're safe in here right?" Gray asked, fearful of the large animal that was observing the vehicle.

"Of course we are, the invisible fence system will—"

The dinosaur took a step forward, fifteen feet. That was the kill zone for the shock implants to kick in but nothing happened, it should be writhing in pain right now but it pressed forward, keeping a steady pace to the car.

She racked her brain to find an answer for why the system wasn't working then she saw the wound in the animal's shoulder and she realized the answer, the tracker implant! _It ripped it out._

The Indominus stepped closer to the vehicle and lowered its head, the carnivore's breath fogging up the glass as its massive head swept back and forth across the vehicle, the passengers frozen in fear at the sight, fearing that the slightest movement would provoke it.

Zara's mind couldn't help but replay the encounter she had before, it felt so similar.

She looked at Zach and Gray, their faces were tense as they stared through the window.

The huge head rolled to the side, jaws open to reveal sharp dagger-like teeth dripping with blood and stooped by the side of the window. In the bright light of day, they could see the beady, reptilian eye focus into a silt in the socket.

It was looking _into_ the car.

The animal let out an ear-piercing roar. It was terrifying, like a scream from another world, the car shook from the force of the sound and the occupants of the vehicle covered their ears.

Zara knew she had to do something, then she remembered the trackers clipped to their belts and frantically pressed the button at the center. Activating her distress beacon.

* * *

"Hello! Mercedes G18, if you can hear me please respond, we have a code nineteen situation on our hands, please leave the area immediately." Claire said into the radio, when no response came, she tried again, "Hello, Zara, Royce, Zach, Gray, anyone, please pick up." Hearing no response, she dejectedly hung it back onto the radio hook and leaned back into the passenger seat.

She and Owen were currently on their way to the valley, using a G class that was stored in the Innovation Center. He put a hand on her shoulder, squeezing it slightly to comfort her.

"Relax, we'll find them."

Suddenly a thought crossed his mind, "Hey Claire?"

"Yeah?"

"Tour groups usually have trackers on them right?"

"Yeah, we give it to all of them."

"Why aren't theirs working? They're not showing up on the map." He said, pointing to the digital map mounted onto the dashboard, there was no sign of their trackers when they should've been flashing their location.

"Is the tracker program on?"

"Doesn't look like it, can you turn it on?"

"Hang on a second, activating now." Claire pressed a button on the map to activate it then she gasped at what came up on the screen, "Oh dear god! oh no, no, no, no."

The tracker lights were flashing a bright red from the restricted area.

Seeing the fearful look in her eyes, Owen slammed his foot onto the gas pedal and sped off further, hoping to god that they weren't too late save them.

* * *

The metal of the cars roof shrieked as the Indominus sunk its claws and teeth into it and the world tilted crazily as the SUV landed roughly on its side, the right side splashing into the mud.

Zara saw the two boys crash into each other against the right window as she fell back into the passenger side, banging her head against the headrest on the way down. She got up and steadied herself with her hands, feeling dizzy and tasting warm blood in her mouth.

She looked to the rear, hearing Zach ask her what they should do but before she could answer, the head of the Indominus crashed through the rear passenger door, knocking the door off of its frame and pinning the two boys against the window, the broken door shielding them from its jaws.

The carnivore pulled back and lunged down into the car, snapping at them as they screamed in fear but the door held on. They pushed back against the door using their feet and hands, only a thin sheet of metal standing between them and the dinosaur's jaws. It kept pushing down and the metal groaned, bending from the force.

The boys turned to her, they didn't say anything but the look in their eyes spoke it loud and clear, they were pleading for help. She frantically looked around the car for a solution, her attention snapped to the underside of the passenger seat, remembering that a Taser was kept there for emergencies.

She reached down into the seat and retrieved the hard plastic case containing the weapon, popping it open to grab the Taser and snap a cartridge on. Then, she steadied herself against the dashboard and screamed to get the animals attention.

"HEY!"

A large reptilian eye turned towards her.

"GET AWAY FROM THEM YOU BITCH!"

She squeezed the trigger and it fired two wire guided metal probes into the animal's skin, sending fifty thousand volts of electricity coursing through its nervous system.

The Indominus shrieked at the high voltage coursing through it, the sound was deafening in the small space of the SUV and it hastily pulled its head out of the car, giving Zara a scant few seconds to press the cartridge eject button before it could pull the weapon out along with it.

There was a brief moment of silence, broken by Zach exclaiming, "Holy shit, did you just do that?!"

She could only grin, "Yeah, I think I did." Warding off a super predator using a Taser wasn't something you did every day.

Then there was a sudden jolt and her world tumbled again as the Indominus pushed the car onto its roof, sending her sprawling onto her stomach.

Looks like all she did was piss it off.

The Indominus towered over the vehicle and slammed one foot onto the chassis, tearing at the undercarriage with its jaws to get to the passengers. Spider webs of cracks began forming on the windows, the frame and the roll cage began to groan under the strain of the dinosaur pressing onto it but the reinforced steel does its job, refusing to buckle under the force.

It dug its claws into the underside and dragged a straight line through it, missing Zara and the boys by mere inches.

"What do we do now?" Zach asked as he checked on Gray, who fell unconscious during the tumble.

"Is he ok?" She asks.

"He'll be fine, I think he hit his head on something."

Zara looked at her surroundings for solutions. The Taser was a good option, if she could find the extra cartridges. But the jolt knocked them out of the container and now she wasn't able to find them. She was struggling to come up with a solution.

"What should we do?" Zach kept asking, growing more impatient.

The metal bent, the spider web of cracks on the windows grew.

"Come on think, damn it, think. There has to be a way out of this." She muttered to herself.

The metal buckled and gave way, the glass shattered from the weight as the car was compressed further down. Muddy water began to fill the cabin, she was running out of time.

Then a road flare rolled her way.

That was it! The Indominus could only see heat and road flares burnt at seven hundred sixty degrees, it would show up on its vision like a bloody Christmas tree. Hopefully, it could distract the dinosaur away from the car, but it was a long shot.

Quickly, she grabbed one and looked towards Zach, who was trying to wake his little brother up.

She called out to him, "Zach."

"Yeah?"

"I have a plan."

"What is it?"

"I don't think you'd want to know the details."

Seeing the flare in her hands, his eyes widened, "You're not going to do what I think you're gonna do right?"

She could only nod, grimly confirming his fears.

"Once I have its attention, I'm going to run into the jungle. You take your brother, get him somewhere safe. Got it?"

"But you'll die, there's no way you'll outrun it!"

"I know, but there's no other way, I'm sorry." She said, voice firm then it softened, "Take care of your brother for me, alright? And I love you, both of you," a tear slipped from her eye, this was it, her final goodbye to them.

And with those final words, she kicked the passenger side open and rolled out of the car, lighting the flare up.

"HEY!" she frantically waved the flare from side to side, hoping that it would notice.

The animal turned and roared at her. It began following the motion of her arm, eyes locked onto the burning object.

"Yeah that's it, focus on me."

She inched backwards slowly, keeping the animals attention solely on her. Then she burst into a run, running past the wreck of the Sprinter, the dinosaur taking off closely after her.

Zara kept on running, how far she didn't know but she could still feel the ground trembling with each of the Indominus' steps as it snapped its jaws at her. The flare she held aloft in her hand was like a dinner bell, the plan was working a little too well.

She turned right, into the jungle, throwing the flare away in the hopes that it would follow the burning object but it just kept running after her. Her lungs burned and her muscles ached, she was mostly running on adrenaline by now but she didn't care. She had to get far enough away from the car to let the boys escape.

Seeing a fallen tree ahead, she vaulted over it in the hopes that the top heavy dinosaur would trip or cease in its pursuit but to her dismay it simply charged through, snapping it in two. Then her leg snagged on something and she fell, landing face first to the ground. The British woman groaned and hastily pushed herself back up, turning around to see that her right leg was tangled in some vines.

"You've got to be kidding me!"

She tugged at the vines, desperately trying to loosen them but the vegetation refused to give. Then a dark shadow loomed over her, she looked up and her eyes widened, gasping at the sight of the Indominus towering over her. Those ruby red eyes stared down at her intensely.

The dinosaur stepped closer to her, lowering its head to examine the trapped woman.

It sniffed her, slowly, methodically, almost _smiling_ in recognition as it savored every ounce of fear radiating from her. Its hot breath smelled like rotten meat.

As the dinosaur reeled back to strike, her life began flashing before her eyes and Zara felt oddly at peace, knowing her time was almost up and resigned herself to imminent death, doing the only thing she could do.

She closed her eyes and thought of Claire.


	9. Chapter 9

_Disclaimer: Jurassic World and the Jurassic Park franchise are the property of Universal Studios, Michael Crichton, Steven Spielberg and Colin Trevorrow. I own nothing from this story aside from the plot._

 **Author's Note: Greetings Readers! First off, I would like to thank you all for your patience and I apologize for the extreme lateness of this chapter. I know I said it would probably be done by Halloween but it** **didn't end up happening, mainly because I was assigned to a short film project for my screen production class, which took a month to do, so I had to unfortunately shelve this story for a while.**

 **Then when we were done, it was time for finals and that meant less free time to work on this. And I also apologize if this isn't as good as the previous one, I'm still in the middle of finals so I didn't have the time to give it a full run through, so feel free to suggest any corrections and point out any mistakes.**

 **The next chapter's release day is still up in the air, as my exams are till next week.**

 **Now onto the story, hope you enjoy.**

Then a loud bang echoed through the jungle.

A shotgun round traveled at supersonic speed like a missile through the air, hitting the dinosaur square in the chest. The round harmlessly pinged off of the animal's armored hide, but it was enough to distract it momentarily. The eternity of having Zara's life flash before her ended; she panted and gasped, clutching her chest.

So close, she came so close to death.

Zara turned her head to the side, looking for the source of the shot. She was relieved to see Royce calmly striding out of the jungle, his weapon booming as he fired it from the hip.

Droplets of sweat ran down his face and his chest heaved as he tried to catch his breath but the look on his face was one of pure determination as he kept firing shot after shot, almost machine like. But the rounds did nothing but make it flinch.

He paused to take a look at the creature, "That is one. Ugly. motherfu— "

The animal roared, cutting him off mid-sentence and charged towards him but Royce was quicker and squeezed the trigger, his shots harmlessly pinging off of its hide, but one managed to hit the dinosaur square in the shoulder, hitting the exposed flesh from when it ripped the tracker out, making it howl in pain.

 _Bingo._

He refocused on the wound, firing more shots at it making the massive carnivore shriek and recoil back further from the pain, running off into the jungle to avoid the hail of gunfire sent it's away.

But in a fit of blind rage, the trooper kept firing, kicking up dirt and tearing the foliage to bits until his gun clicked empty.

His focused gaze never left the jungle, finger pressed down hard on the trigger even though it was empty. He was brought out of it by Zara repeatedly calling out to him.

Shaking his head, he turned to her, "I'm sorry, you OK?"

"I can't move, my leg's tangled."

"Stay still, I'm going to cut you out," He unsheathed his machete and cut through the vines, freeing her leg and pulled her up by her hand.

"Thanks," She said as she dusted herself off, "How about you?" she added when she saw the blood that was soaking his gloves and fatigues.

"I'll be fine, it was someone else's," He said, ejecting the empty magazine from his shotgun and reaching behind him to take a new one out of his ammo pouch, slamming it into the magazine well.

He looked around the area cautiously, adding, "But you can't stay here, it'll be back soon. I need you to go back to the car, and get those two boys out of here, I'll hold it off."

"Do you know where Zach and Gray are?"

"No, I didn't check the car."

"So, you're not coming?" She really didn't like the idea of leaving him to face it alone, it would be a death sentence.

He sighed and shook his head, "I can't, if I come with you, it'll be on us faster than we can outrun it. But I can buy you some time and keep it off your track while you escape."

"There's just one problem, it destroyed the car."

"Damn it, this day just keeps getting better and better doesn't it?" he sighed, then his head snapped up. "I have an idea, the old visitor center is a couple of minutes' walk from the where the car was, you can take those two there and bunker down for a while until rescue comes."

She nodded.

He unslung the tranquilizer rifle from his back and handed it to her, "Here, you'll need this."

The rifle wouldn't do much good against The Indominus but there were other dinosaurs in the area and it would be better for her to have one than none at all. His combat experience told him that some people felt more secure with a weapon in hand and after an encounter like that, she needed that extra sense of security.

As she slung the gun across her shoulder he added, "In the trunk, there's a case labeled MORO-709. You'll find some extra magazines in there."

"Can I have your watch too?" She asked.

"Why?"

"I told them to find somewhere safe when I left them, they're probably far away from the car by now."

"Alright, here," He took off his smartwatch and handed it to her.

Just before they parted ways, Zara turned to him, "Royce."

"Yeah?"

"Good luck out there."

He shot her a cocky grin, "I don't need luck. I'm a Ranger. Now get out of here, I'll see you on the other side when this is all over."

Those were the last words she ever heard from him before he turned away and ran off into the jungle.

When she arrived at the car, Zara quickly peeked her head inside of the passenger compartment, somewhat relieved that the boys left. The footprints that lead away from the car proved it. But there was only one set, that meant Gray was still unconscious and Zach carried him away.

 _At least they're safe,_ she thought.

She made her way to the rear of the car, but to her frustration the trunk was dented and jammed shut so she had to reach her hand inside of it to retrieve the case, being careful to avoid the shards of broken glass that were still stuck to the window mount.

Opening it, she found a cloth tactical belt and two rifle magazines, putting the belt around her waist and inserting the magazines into the pouches on it.

Reaching into the trunk again, she also took out a backpack, it contained emergency supplies someone would need in a situation such as this; a first aid kit, duct tape, a quart sized water bottle, a radio (not that it would do much good given the current situation), an electric lantern and some food.

Then she went to the passenger side and took out her purse, taking her phone so she could contact Claire when she could get a signal and a hair tie to push her hair back, it became sweaty and sticky during her run and she didn't want it impeding her visibility.

Zara also took out something else, something small but equally as important to her, something she'd rather not leave behind. It was a small golden SAS cap badge, a family heirloom that was passed down from her grandfather to her father, then to her.

She left the purse next to the car, with all the gear she had already, it was going to weigh her down and she could always come for it later anyway.

Clipping the badge to the collar of her blouse, she took a deep breath and sprinted into the jungle to look for the boys.

Royce trekked carefully through the jungle, keeping his senses on high alert. The Indominus tore a path of destruction in its haste to escape and left an obvious trail for him to follow, trees were toppled onto the ground, branches littered the floor from it charging through the trees and blood was spattered onto the bushes around the area, it was utter chaos.

The trail stopped near a clearing. The trooper stopped and scanned his surroundings, finger hovering over the trigger, primed to squeeze off a burst of automatic shotgun fire in case the Indominus decided to ever show its face.

The clearing was quiet, the only sound were the trees rustling in the breeze and insects chirping. Years of military training and experience told him that something wasn't right, then it dawned on him. This area was a prime spot for an ambush, and he was on the receiving end.

Then he saw a blur of movement coming from the left, the trooper tried to evade but it was too late.

The dinosaur's muscular tail slammed into Royce's chest like a giant baseball bat, knocking the wind out of him and sending him flying into a tree. He crashed into it, hitting several branches on the way down before landing with a hard thud.

He rolled out of the way just a large shadow loomed over him, barely avoiding the Indominus' foot as it stomped on his AA12, flattening it into a piece of useless metal. It roared triumphantly and glared at him, almost daring him to make a move.

The trooper groaned and groggily got back to his feet, gripping his side in pain. It hurt to breathe, probably broken or fractured a few ribs on the way down. In a bold move, he took off his uniform, vest and hat, then he took out his machete and locked eyes with the creature, slashing himself across the chest in a show of defiance.

The two combatants begun an intense stare down, like two wolves about to fight to the death. Readying themselves for the battle between man vs predator.

They circled each other, Royce twirling his machete as he recited the creed of the Ranger corps.

"I am a US Army Ranger."

"I will always endeavor to uphold the prestige, honor, and high esprit de corps of the Rangers."

"I shall defeat my enemies on the field of battle for I am better trained and will fight with all my might."

He leveled an intense glare at the carnivore, "Surrender is not a Ranger word."

"Readily will I display the fortitude required to fight on to the Ranger objective and complete the mission though I be the lone survivor," He grinned, it seemed cheesy, but if he was going to go, this is how he wanted it to be, holding the Ranger banner high and proud.

The animal roared and charged towards him.

"Rangers lead the way!" He bellowed, bursting into a full on sprint to meet the carnivore head on.

A scream cut through the jungle, startling Zara on her trek. Her heart fell, and a single tear rolled down her cheek at the loss of a good friend, but she didn't have time to mourn, so she pressed onward.

She found Zach and Gray a little later, resting at the base of a tree. When they saw her, they immediately rushed forward to hug her, relieved that she didn't meet her end. Zara just hugged them back, glad to see that they were safe.

"How did you make it out of there?" Zach asked as he pulled away from the hug.

She was about to answer when an earth shaking roar broke through the silence, "I'll tell you later, we need to move."

The three of them continued to walk further into the restricted area.

"Hey, what's that?" Gray said, pointing to an object that lay on the ground ahead of them. He ran ahead to see it closer and to his horror saw that it was a bloody hard hat, crushed and split open.

Tension filled the air then, the two boys hiding behind Zara as she raised the rifle and pointed it in all directions, sweeping the area for threats. Then something caught her eye, it was an electric ATV, used by staff members to travel to and from the restricted area.

"Stay close," Zara said to the two of them as she cautiously walked towards the vehicle, the rifle sat tight against her shoulders as she trained the weapon ahead. As she got closer, she could see that the vehicle was severely damaged, sparks shot out of the engine compartment and there were giant bloody rips in the seat.

Once she was sure the area was clear, Zara lowered the rifle and scanned the area around them, wondering where the old visitor center was, parts of it were still there the last time she came here but now all she could see was thick jungle.

Then she saw it, poking through the vines and palm fronds were the center's distinctive double doors. She walked towards it, calling for the boys to come with her.

As she came closer to it, she was disheartened at how far the once majestic building fell into disrepair over the years, still remembering the purpose it was built for.

Once, it was designed to welcome visitors from all over the world to experience the wonder and the majesty of these leviathans of the ancient world and the awesome power of science that brought them back from extinction, but now—now it just stood there, lifeless and empty. A relic of a bygone age much like dinosaurs that roamed in the park beyond it.

Zara pushed the doors open with a loud creak, the sound echoed throughout the empty building. Inside, it revealed a huge rotunda, and a spiral staircase that lead up to a second floor. Two decades of neglect had nature reclaim most of the structure, covering most of the area in thick vines and leaves. At the center of it were two statue bases where two dinosaur skeletons; a Tyrannosaur and an Alamosaurus once stood, posed in titanic combat against each other, but now they lay scattered all over the floor. A result of some unknown battle.

It was the second time anyone had set foot in it in years, the first time was last year when Claire assigned her to be John Hammond's personal guide when he came to visit the park a few weeks before his death.

A small smile spread across her face as she fondly recalled the time she spent with the parks founder, he was mostly wheelchair bound at that point, but still full of energy and enthusiasm at seeing his dream being realized successfully. When they came here, he couldn't stop talking about all the work they put into building what was supposed to become the greatest theme park in the history of the world. The building seemed to trigger a flood of memories for him.

" _You know the first attraction I ever made when I came down from Scotland?" He asked as she wheeled him into the old visitor center. ACU troopers stood guard outside the main doors._

 _"_ _Yes, it was a motorized flea circus." She said, stopping near the center of the rotunda._

 _"_ _Petticoat lane," He smiled, fondly remembering his first attraction, "quite wonderful really, we had almost everything. A wee trapeze, a-a carousel, and a seesaw. People would always come and say they could see the fleas. "Oh, I see the fleas, mummy! Can't you see the fleas?" Clown fleas and high wire fleas and fleas on parade, but it was all an illusion."_

 _His smile faltered and he swept his gaze around the empty building, his expression somber, "With this place, I wanted to show them something more, something that wasn't an illusion. We made living biological attractions so astounding that they'd capture the imagination of the entire planet. Certainly, an aim not devoid of merit."_

 _He sighed, gazing sadly at his amber topped cane, "But we didn't treat the power that we had with respect, never realized how unstable and powerful it was until it was too late, and we paid the price for it."_

 _"_ _At least you had your heart in the right place."_

 _He chuckled, "Well, you know what they say about hell and good intentions."_

 _A brief silence hung in the air, broken by Zara asking, "Mr. Hammond, if you—,"_

 _He held up a hand, "Oh Please, John is just fine, there's no need for formalities."_

 _"_ _John, I remember you saying that we should've left the animals alone after the San Diego incident, but then why sell INGEN to Mr. Masrani?"_

 _"_ _That's a good question. You see, after the Incident with Cathy Bowman and in San Diego, I knew that my board of advisors couldn't be trusted. I wanted someone I could trust to take care of my creations, my dream after I passed on, and who would treat this power with the utmost level of respect."  
"What about your grandchildren, Lex and Tim Murphy?"_

 _He shook his head, "No, they were adamant about wanting nothing more to do with this place and they wholeheartedly agreed to allow Simon to acquire the company. I couldn't blame them really, especially after what they went through here. He reminded me so much of myself when I was his age. Young, ambitious, an eye for talent and had the whole world ahead of him._

 _"_ _I met Simon at my estate in New York. I was undergoing treatment at the time, so I was bedridden for the most part but we had a splendid time, let me tell you! We talked endlessly about anything and everything, future endeavors, our businesses, our hobbies. Then I talked about the park and just like that," He snapped his fingers, "His eyes just lit up and he was transfixed to everything I had to say. And without hesitation, he immediately asked if I could hand over INGEN to him, assuring me that he would take every measure so that there would be no further disasters. That's why I entrusted this place, my dream to him."_

 _Hearing no response, he continued, smiling, "And from the looks of it, I put it into the right hands. Your boss, Claire, was it? She's done a fantastic job! Jurassic World is now the greatest amusement park in the entire world, there's not much else I can ask for. "_

 _She sighed, "But it's a tough job though, we're barely braking even this year. It seems people aren't that interested anymore."_

 _"_ _I'm sure you'll figure something out, the prehistoric world has so much to offer us, so many bizarre and wonderful creatures that can dazzle the mind of the public."_

 **Author's Note: This chap was a lot longer, clocking in at 5,000 words going on until The Main Street Pterosaur Attack but I decided to cut it in half since there was too much going on already and decided to make the other half it's own chapter.**


	10. Chapter 10

_Disclaimer: Jurassic World and the Jurassic Park franchise are the property of Universal Studios, Michael Crichton, Steven Spielberg and Colin Trevorrow. I own nothing from this story aside from the plot._

 _Authors Note: Hello! And apologies first and foremost for the delay and keeping you all in the dark about what's going on. It was just a very hectic month with travelling and then new years and then with a new semester starting, it doesn't give a ton of free time to work on this so after this update, I'm not sure when the next though I am planning on it coming out around February or so. So that's all, and please enjoy the latest chapter, it's a lot longer to make up for the wait._

 _Comments, criticisms and suggestions are always welcome, I always love reading them. Feel free to point out any mistakes, grammatical or otherwise._

She always argued against leaving the building in shambles, this place had a profound history to it and it would be a shame to leave it in its current state.

The three of them made their way to the staircase, stepping over a tattered WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH banner. Zach and Gray sat down at the base of the steps as Zara surveyed the area around them.

"I guess we can wait here until help arrives," she said, more for their benefit than for hers. With the Indominus loose, security would be tied up for some time so it would be a while before anyone would come and that's even if anyone noticed their distress signal.

She went closer to Gray, took off her sunglasses and unslung her backpack and rifle, crouching down so she could look him over. Fortunately, the only injuries he sustained were nothing major, just a cut on his forehead, from when he fell in the car. She unzipped the pack and stowed her sunglasses inside, then she pulled out a small first aid kit, taking out a box of antiseptic wipes and some adhesive bandages.

Zara started by taking out some of the wipes from the box. "This will sting a little," she said as she gently dabbed at the wound with the wipes to clean it, softly muttering, "Just relax," as he started to flinch from the pain.

As she applied the bandage to his head, Zach asked, "So, what was it that attacked us? I've never seen a dinosaur like that before."

She paused, considering whether or not to answer the question. The Indominus' existence was kept highly classified from the public and she was under a non-disclosure agreement even knowing that it existed.

But given the circumstances they were facing, Zara decided to tell them anyway, it was only right.

"That's because you're not supposed to see it, not yet anyway. It's called the Indominus Rex and it was built in a lab, designed specifically to be as mean and terrifying as possible, it was our new main attraction. We were going to unveil it next month." She said, smoothing the bandage and pressing a kiss to his forehead, "Better?"

Gray nodded, smiling at her, then he asked "But why?"

"Well, the marketing department decided we needed a new attraction to attract more visitors. So the boys in the lab cooked that up," She said as she sat down next to him, taking off her shoes to give her feet some much needed relief. Trying to outrun a super predator in high heels wasn't the best idea she ever had.

"I mean why did they have to build one, couldn't you just have picked one that already existed?"

"Well, we did have some existing animals we were planning to use; real classics like the Allosaurus, Carnotaur, Plesiosaur and the Diplodocus. But none of them tested well with the focus groups. They wanted something bigger, badder, more teeth."

Gray gave her an "Uh-huh." While Zach just shook his head, disappointed at the reasoning behind it.

Then out of the blue Gray asked, "If Mom and Dad get divorced, you and Aunt Claire will still come visit us right?"

That caught her off guard, her posture noticeably stiffening, it completely blindsided her but she tried to maintain composure, "What makes you say that?"

"Because they are, they're getting letters from two different lawyers and they're always yelling at each other and-and..." His upper lip trembled, tears spilling from his eyes.

She held the crying boy in her arms, running her hands through his hair, trying to comfort him.

"Oh Gray, I know it's hard to understand, but sometimes these things happen, parents will sometimes just stop loving each other and maybe what they need is a little time away you know?," She said, remembering the times that Karen confided in her about her and David's deteriorating relationship.

"And well, try to look on the bright side, at least now you'll get two birthdays."

"But I don't want two of everything….I just want one…." he said, tears rolling down his face as he sobbed. Zara's heart nearly broke at what the poor boy was going through, wishing there was more that she could do.

She sighed, hugging him a bit tighter to her, "I know, but sometimes life doesn't give you that choice, all you can do is just be strong and try to face it as best as you can."

Silence hung in the air then as she allowed Gray to let it all out. Shifting her gaze right, she saw Zach staring straight ahead, mostly keeping to himself. She wanted to talk to him about it, but decided against it, reasoning that he needed some space to himself at the moment.

"Aunt Zara?" Gray asked, sniffling.

"Yes?" she said, turning her attention to him again.

"You won't leave us, right?"

She shook her head, pressing a soft kiss into his hair "No, of course not, I promise you as long as I live I'll never leave your side, ever."

"Promise?"

"You have my word."

Gray said nothing, just burrowed himself further into her. Zara squeezed him a little bit tighter to reassure him that she wasn't going anywhere. She could only imagine what he was going through, like he was caught in the middle of a raging ocean, barely hanging on; just overwhelmed from the situation he was going through.

As his tears subsided, Gray noticed a glint in the corner of his eye and saw something pinned to her blouse.

"What's that?" He asked, pointing to the badge on her collar. It was a downward pointing sword, wreathed in flames and wrapped around the blade was a cloth with an inscription on it.

"Oh, this?" She unclipped it and showed it to him, "It's an SAS cap badge, the kind you pin to a beret. My grandfather received it from his time in the Special Air Service during World War 2. Then he passed it down to my father before he was deployed to the Falklands."

"How did you get it?"

Zara smiled, remembering the day the badge was given to her. "My father gave it to me before I went to college, said it was for good luck. He told me it kept him going even when everything was at their bleakest, because it reminded him what he was really fighting for back home."

He took a closer look at the inscription on the cloth that wrapped around the sword, "Who dares wins. What does it mean?"

"It means that those who dare to try will always succeed, that you should never just let life pass you by. If you wanted something and you had the opportunity to get it, you take it. It's helped a lot in my life, gave me that little push I needed to get something done when I had little to no motivation."

She recalled many late nights in college, where she was almost dead tired from fatigue working on her papers but looking at the badge reminded her of her parents, and gave her a momentary burst of adrenaline she needed to get things done or how the mantra repeated itself in her head on that fateful night, many years ago when her face was only inches away from Claire's and she decided to risk it all by pressing her lips against hers.

They lapsed into silence again, broken by Zach asking, "So, what is this place exactly?"

"This is the visitor center for the original park, it was the first stop for all the park's guests before they would go on the tour."

"So this was where all the dinosaurs were made?" Gray asked.

"Well, yes and no. While this park did have the technology to clone the animals, it was nothing more than a showroom. Most of the production took place on-"

"Isla Sorna, Site B." Zach answered, remembering the time he asked the same question.

"That's correct, most of the animals were grown and raised on Sorna and when they were mature enough were shipped over here to be exhibited." She said. "So, who wants to take a look around?"

"Really?" Gray asked, excited at the prospect of exploring the derelict building, wondering what they could find.

"Beat's sitting around here." Zach replied.

Zara slipped her shoes back on as the two boys got to their feet. She took the electric lantern from the backpack and stowed the first aid kit back inside, zipping the bag closed. That done, she slipped her arms through the bag's straps and took her rifle, slinging it across her shoulders.

She looked around the building, wondering where they should head first and elected to explore the upper floors since that was where the labs were. The British woman led the two of them up the stairs, activating the lantern to illuminate the path ahead. She took careful steps as she ascended, unsure what effects of two decades of elemental exposure had on them.

As the trio stepped onto the upper floor landing, Zara saw a pack of Compys eating from a carcass of some animal. They scurried off when they saw the group approach.

She led them to a metal door marked DECONTAMINATION AIRLOCK and slid it open, the lack of power had left the electric locks non-functional.

The three of them walked into a large room, the lantern illuminating the dark room. Just like the rest of the building, the lab was similarly overgrown with vines, dust and cobwebs covering some of the walls and the lab equipment.

"Welcome to the main lab, where Jurassic Park's scientists made the impossible, possible." Zara said. The two boys looked awestruck as they looked around.

Ahead of them, there was a large glass chamber where the embryos would have been kept. A small staircase that led down to the main floor of the lab, where the rest of the labs equipment was. At the center of it was an incubator for the dinosaur eggs.

They entered the glass chamber. Inside there were two cylindrical metal towers that stored the dinosaur embryos under cold storage. They were attached to two nitrogen tanks. Zara set the lantern down on a nearby table and opened each of the towers and a rack of tubes slid out of each one. She was somewhat glad that the cooling system was no longer working or else her hands would have been frozen solid.

"What are those?" Gray asked, puzzled at the small glass tubes that lined the interior. They were all filled with a strange liquid and were labeled by species: Tyranosaurus, Stegasaurus, Triceratops, Brachiosaurus, Velociraptor. Each row was filled with thin glass containers, a plastic stopper topped each one.

"These are the dinosaur's embryos. After the geneticists extracted the dinosaur blood from the amber, they were developed into a viable embryo then implanted into an artificial egg." Zara explained, giving a simplified version of it.

"So we can still use these to make dinosaurs?" Zach asked.

She shook her head, "No, these embryos have already decayed. They've been out in the open for far too long. They're useless now, any useful genetic material they could've had disappeared a long time ago."

She closed the towers, then led the two boys out of the chamber and down the staircase to the main lab floor.

Through what little light there was, Gray could see the incubator. It was a large circular table with a heat lamp above it and next to it was some sort of robotic arm. Inside, it was decorated to look like real nest with various pieces of grass, sticks and leaves scattered throughout.

"This was what the embryos were implanted into," Zara said, passing Gray an already broken egg. "Unfertilized ostrich eggs, these sit under a heat lamp for about a month or so and that," She pointed to the robotic arm, "Turns the eggs every once in a while so they get even amounts of heat. And after that, the egg hatches and _voila!_ You have yourself a dinosaur. Amazing isn't it?"

"Wow," was all Gray could say. Zach meanwhile tuned out the explanation, he already heard the same thing about a million times before.

After a stop at the control room, the three headed back down the stairs, taking right at the bottom to go through a corridor.

At the end of the dark hallway, Zara saw a door. The trio made their way across it, the lantern's light glinting off of framed posters lining the walls, gleefully advertising upcoming rides to a park that didn't exist anymore.

"So, how did you escape from the Indominus?" Zach asked as the three of them traversed the hall, his voice echoing throughout the empty hallway.

"When I was running away from it, my leg was tangled in some vines and then I fell, it almost ate me too. Not the best thing to have on your epitaph, mind you."

She suppressed a chuckle at the thought of having 'here lies Zara Young, eaten by a dinosaur because she forgot to look down' written on her headstone, knowing that the thought of her acting as bait for the massive carnivore and almost certainly dying was fresh in their minds so she continued, "Then Royce came out of the jungle, he managed to ward it off."

"Speaking of Royce, where is he?"

Zara stopped mid-stride, tightly gripping the backpack's strap as she considered her words. Hesitation clear on her face. What was she going to say, that she condemned her friend to his death just by virtue of him doing his job? The thought of it made her feel uncomfortable; that it was just 'part of the job' to throw away his life like that.

But then again, all of the troopers knew that. It came with the turf really. You either retire with a few broken bones and scars at best, or you go home in a body bag at worst.

She started, a little hesitantly at first. "He-uh-he didn't make it. He stayed back to hold off the Indominus while I escaped."

"I-uh-I'm sorry to hear that, Aunt Zara." Zach said sincerely. Gray bowed his head in respect.

Zara took a deep breath, wiping away tears that threatened to spill from her eyes. "It's ok, let's just keep moving."

As they arrived at the door, Zara cleared away the vegetation that covered it. She saw that it was marked GARAGE in faded black lettering and below it was a sign that read NO ENTRY, AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

Passing the lantern to Zach, she bashed the door open with her shoulder.

It swung open to reveal a room filled with cabinets and shelves, dirty and covered in vines. In a corner there were two jeeps, parked facing an open garage door. They were grey with a diagonal red stripe painted on them. The British woman recalled that the jeeps were painted that way to discourage the trikes from charging at them.

The trio passed an equipment cabinet, the doors were open and it was lined with racks of walkie-talkies. Gray paused to take a look at an odd pair of goggles he saw inside it, closer examination revealed that they were night vision goggles. They suddenly whirred to life when he picked them up, startling him and making him step back, dropping them.

As they approached the cars, Gray started rattling off details about them.

"1992 Jeep Wrangler Sahara, sand beige."

"Looks like it's in decent shape. Zach, can you pop open the bonnet?" Zara said, dropping her backpack and rifle against the side of the car and giving the vehicle a quick once over.

He stared at her for a second, head tilted in confusion.

"Sorry, I meant the hood."

The teen reached down and pulled the hood release. Zara thanked him, pushing the hood of the car up to examine the engine bay. Her father had taught her a little bit about fixing cars so she could see that the engine could still work, but it would need a lot of repairs to be functioning again: it needed a new battery for one and probably an oil change, some fuel wouldn't hurt either.

"Have you two fixed a car before?"

"Well, we fixed up Grandpa's old Mustang once, why?" Zach replied.

"We can get this jeep running again, but it needs some repairs."

"But I thought you said we should wait until help gets here?"

"I did, but with the Indominus roaming around I'm not sure how long we would have to wait. And that's even if anyone noticed the distress signal I sent. We could be here for half an hour or even until tomorrow morning."

Zach nodded, conceding her point. "But what are we going to use for parts? It's not like anything here is still working."

"What about the ATV outside?" Gray said. "Maybe we could scavenge some parts from that?"

Zara removed her jacket and tied the sleeves around her waist, looking determined. "Ok, then let's get to work.

* * *

"What just happened?" Claire asked, staring at the digital map.

"What do you mean?" Owen said, eyes focused on the road.

"It's their trackers, they just disappeared."

Owen glanced at the map, and Claire was right; the trio's signal was nowhere to be seen. He looked at the top right corner of the map and his suspicions were confirmed; there was no GPS signal.

"Looks like the jungle canopy's too thick around here, the satellite isn't coming through."

Claire leaned back into her sighed. "That's just great..."

The road curved then ran up a hill, as they came down, Claire and Owen could see the road ahead of them, where the attack took place.

"Jesus," Owen whispered.

Claire leaned forward in her seat to get a better look and saw a Mercedes SUV lying on its back at the center of the road. The roof was crumpled, as if an animal had stepped onto the car and the underside was mangled and torn to pieces. Ahead of it was a wrecked ACU van, lying on its side and behind the car was a fallen tree.

As the car slowed to a stop near the fallen tree, Owen cautiously observed their surroundings and started formulating a plan in his head.

"Ok, here's what were gonna do, we don't know where the Indominus is yet so we have to approach the car slowly and cautiously. Alright, Claire? Claire?"

Confused at the silence that suddenly filled the car, he turned to the passenger seat to find the passenger door left ajar and Claire bolting towards the wreck of the SUV, screaming Zara's name at the top of her lungs.

He sighed, "Or we could go in running and screaming."

Taking his rifle, a scoped Marlin Model 1895SBL, from the back, Owen opened the driver side door and began running towards Claire, calling out to her, "CLAIRE! CLAIRE, SLOW DOWN!"

Claire just disregarded his calls as she clambered over the fallen tree, the British woman and her nephews were the only thing on her mind. She had to make sure they were okay, they had to be.

'I'm stupid, so stupid. Should've been there, shouldn't have left them alone.'

Her heart sank as she approached the overturned car. No one was responding to her, so she called out again only to be interrupted with a hand clamping down over her mouth. Turning to her left, she saw Owen looking at her, a finger pressed against his mouth, telling her to keep quiet.

She angrily shoved his hand away, lips pressed into a tight scowl, "Don't you shush me Owen! Zara and my nephews are out there and they could be in danger. I have to find them."

Owen carefully laid a hand on her shoulder, trying to calm her down. To his surprise, she didn't slap it away or scream at him again.

"Claire," He started, slowly, trying to carefully pick the words he was going to say, "I know you're worried about them, I'm worried too, but running and screaming in the middle of the jungle isn't going to help them."

She sighed, clenching her fists to stem the tide of emotions going through her head.

Her face softened taking a deep breath and recomposing herself, "Then what do you suggest we do?"

"We can start by analyzing the clues here, starting with that." He said, shifting his gaze downwards to a handbag that lay on the ground nearby.

"This is Zara's handbag." Claire said, picking it up to take a closer look.

"And the zip is open. Check inside, see if there's anything missing."

Claire rummaged through it, finding a park map, Zara's staff ID, purse, a makeup kit and a copy of Ian Malcom's book, _God Creates Dinosaurs_.

"Her phone's missing, is that important?"

"Yeah, it means they're alive."

"How do you know that?" She squinted her eyes at the statement, doubting his analysis of their condition from Zara's handbag alone.

"Simple, the missing phone and the fact that her handbag is just lying on the ground outside." Owen said, "They prove it."

"She could've opened it at any time, even before the attack and her bag could've been tossed out when it happened."

"Think about it. If you were attacked by a large carnivore like the Indominus, would you take the time to open your handbag and grab your cellphone? And besides, there's nothing else out here except for that. No," Owen said. "This all happened after the attack."

Seeing the doubtful look she cast him, he continued, "Does she have any personal effects? Something she always has on her?"

"Yeah, she has this umm…badge her father gave her, some military insignia or something. She usually keeps it in here." Claire rummaged through the bag but couldn't find the object. "It's not here."

"There you go." He said, matter of fact.

"Then where is she? Cause I'd stay right here and wait for someone to come get me."

"You're right on that part," He replied, "But maybe Zara and the two boys couldn't wait here. The Indominus could've come back or some other animal might have been sniffing around. In any case, something made them leave."

Crouching down, Owen peered inside the wrecked car for more clues of the incident. His eyes widened when he noticed that the passenger side door had been kicked open.

"Claire, you should take a look at this."

The operations manager watched as Owen walked to the passenger side and crouched down, gaze swinging from the door to the ground, focused on his search.

"You see these footprints?" He asked, gaze focused on the ground.

"What prints?" Claire said.

He pointed to the ground, "These footprints, see 'em? Going away from the car? They look like adult sized prints, high heels from the looks of it and another set, medium sized. Looks like some kind of sneaker."

Claire desperately wanted to believe him, hoping that they were safe but all she could see was the wet mud, puddles catching the light coming from the sun above.

"Where do you think they might be?" She asked.

"I'm willing to bet that they're holed up in the old visitor center, it's the safest place around here."

"So, what are we waiting here for? We should be heading there right now."

"Woah, woah, no." He protested, shaking his head, "You get back, I'll go find them. It's too dangerous for you out here."

She dropped the handbag and angrily moved forward, gripping him by the jacket, "Now you listen to me. WE," She gestured between them, brows furrowed in anger, "are going to go in there and find them, OK?! I have too much at stake here Owen, and I am _not_ going to just sit on the sidelines and watch. So like it or not I'm coming with you, do you understand?"

She let go of him, crossing her arms and looking him dead in the eye.

Owen sighed, "Claire, you'll survive 2 minutes out there. Less in those hee-Uh what are you doing?" He added as Claire began to unclip the belt that held her blouse, tying the hem around her waist which showed off her purple undershirt. Then she rolled up her sleeves, crossing her arms and looking at Owen dead in the eye when she was done.

"I'm getting ready to go." She said simply.

He sighed for a second time, pinching the bridge of his nose, "Just let me make one thing clear." He pointed to the jungle beyond them, "When we're in there, I'm in charge. You do everything I say exactly as I say-"

"Excuse me?" She cut in.

"Just relax, it'll be like taking a stroll through the woods. 65 Million years ago…"Owen said, giving her a cocky grin.

Claire brushed past him, unaware of him casting a wary glance at a footprint the Indominus left in the mud.

* * *

Zara was trying to dislodge the battery from the ATV's engine compartment while Zach rummaged around the car, looking for things that they could use. Gray stood watch, keeping an eye out for threats.

"I found a gas can," Zach called out from the rear.

"Any fuel left in it?" She asked.

The teen lifted the plastic fuel canister, trying to feel how much was still in it. "It's half empty."

"It'll do."

She finally managed to remove the battery and was passing it to Zach when suddenly the sound of a branch snapping travelled through the air, startling the three of them.

"You think it's out there?" he asked, earning him a fearful look from his brother. He looked at Zara, a pleading look on his face that said 'please help me,' but she just shook her head, turning her attention back to engine compartment. This was one problem he had to figure out for himself.

"Well, I know for a fact that it is definitely not out there, alright? It's totally safe." He said, trying to reassure his brother. Gray seemed to accept it, his expression relaxing slightly.

"Here, take this," he passed the battery to Gray. "You're a lot stronger than me."

As his brother walked away to head inside, Zach felt a hand settle on his shoulder, squeezing slightly. He looked back and saw his aunt staring at him with a look of pride.

"That was sweet of you Zach." She said. Then she whacked him upside the head.

He rubbed the back of his head in pain. "OW! What was that for?"

"That was for making your brother do the heavy lifting."

* * *

They proceeded slowly through the jungle, Owen kept his rifle pointed ahead while Claire followed him from behind. Then they heard a wheezing sound, like an animal in pain.

"What is that?" she whispered.

"Shhh…" Owen said.

They heard the wheezing again, more distinctly this time. The bushes ahead rustled with movement, parting to reveal a Dilophosaurus, about five feet tall and twenty feet long. An adult. The animal looked like it had gone through a wood chipper; its body was littered with claw marks, raw muscle and bone showing through in places, the left crest chipped and cracked. Its right frill was missing, a dripping wound on its neck the only sign that it had been there.

The Dilophosaur limped towards them then it toppled to the ground, wheezing and gasping for air. It looked at them, almost as if it was pleading for help.

Owen crouched over the animal to examine its injuries, studying it intensely. His gaze was somber as he looked over the carnivore's battered form. It was as he feared; the wounds were fatal, there was nothing he could do.

"It's alright, it's ok buddy, it's alright," The raptor handler stroked the dying animal, whispering words of comfort to try and ease some of the suffering it was going through. "Shh, I know, I know. Its ok, it's ok. It'll be over soon."

Claire kneeled opposite him, cautiously lowering her hand onto the Dilophosaur's head. She felt every bump and wrinkle on its skin, her hand travelling down to its chest as it rose and fell. And as she gazed at the animal, realization hit her, like a triceratops ramming into a car. This was a living, breathing creature that lay dying at her feet.

And she was powerless to do anything about it.

For the first time in her life, Claire Dearing felt helpless, at a loss for what to do and it scared her. She was always the one in control before, the one with the multitude of backup plans but when faced with this animal, she was at a complete loss.

The DIlophosaur lifted its head suddenly, making Claire and Owen recoil slightly. It let out one final cry before it collapsed back onto the ground and closed its eyes, exhaling its last breath. Owen just shook his head sadly at its passing.

Claire kept stroking the animal, a lone tear rolling down her cheek. She lifted her hand, palm facing upward and gasped at the blood that soaked it, trickling down her arm. Her face froze in shock as it hit her. This was all her fault, this animal was dead because of her.

"What have I done?" she muttered shakily, tremors in her fingers.

Owen got to his feet and crossed the bushes where the animal came from. The corpses of various dinosaurs were strewn across the forest floor; another dilopohosaur lay against a tree with its stomach torn open, guts spilling onto the ground, an ankylosaur with its head torn clean off and farther ahead there were many more, each more gruesome than the last. Claire came up behind him, gasping at the sight.

"It didn't eat 'em." He said, brows furrowed in confusion. The raptor handler was surprised to say the least, a carnivore like the Indominus should have at least eaten to replenish its energy after a killing spree like this but no. All the corpses here lay untouched.

"It's killing for sport."

* * *

After replacing the battery, putting fresh gasoline and changing the oil (and getting more grease on herself than Zara would have liked) they were done fixing car. Gray sat in the driver's seat, ready to start the engine.

"Can you try starting it?" Zara said, keeping her fingers crossed. This was it, the moment of truth.

He turned the key and the car rumbled to life. "It works!"

Gray moved to the rear as Zara and Zach sat in the front. The British woman considered letting him drive but the last time she tried teaching him to do that, he crashed her (very expensive) rental car into a tree.

Putting the jeep into gear, she drove away from the garage.

The jeep sped through the jungle, its occupants breathing a sigh of relief as the park came into view. That was it, they were finally safe.

Then Gray looked back and the pit of his stomach dropped, seeing a flock of pterosaurs flying above the tree line. He turned back to the front and urged Zara to go faster, who mouthed 'oh shit' when she saw the rearview mirror and shifted the jeep into high gear, putting her foot to the floor.

As they arrived at the gate, Zara honked the horn to get the attention of the two guards that stood on top of it. Their relaxed expressions morphed into fear when they saw what was coming and they let the group inside, telling them to quickly find shelter.

It was absolute chaos in the park, people were running around everywhere in a panic to find shelter or escape the Pterosaurs and Dimorphodons that dived onto them like a pack of airborne piranhas.

The three of them exited the car, Zara stopping to take her rifle from the back as they made their way to Main Street. Then, she quickly pulled out her phone and called Claire.

"Zara thank god, where are you?"

"We're at the west gate, heading for the visitor center, where are you?"

"I'm on my way. Stay right with them, I'll meet you there."

Before she could reply, a panicked visitor accidentally shoved her to the ground, disorienting her and sending her phone skidding across the pavement. Shaking her vision clear, she saw Zach and Gray trying to reach her but the crowd was pushing them the other way. They struggled against the crowd but the maelstrom of people was too strong and by the time she stood up couldn't see them anymore, they were swallowed up by the stampede.

She ran down the street to try and catch sight of them, calling out their names at the top of her lungs, but it was no use, the loud mass of screaming people drowned out her voice.

Shoving her way past the hectic crowds, Zara caught sight of them in the middle of Main Street, they looked around frantically, lost and confused. Her face lit up with relief.

Then she looked up and her heart sunk.

A pterosaur was swooping down onto them. She burst into a sprint, yelling and motioning to them to get out of the way. When that didn't work, the raven haired woman sprinted faster, ramming into them with her shoulder, knocking the two boys onto the ground.

"GO, FIND CLAIRE!" she yelled as the pterosaur swooped down, claws outstretched.

Pain lanced through her body as the Pterosaur's claws clamped down onto her shoulders, tearing into her flesh with little resistance and lifted her up.

But then she felt something or someone was holding onto her. Looking down, she saw Gray holding onto her pant leg. Zach was holding onto him, his weight the only thing keeping Gray tethered to the ground.

"Gray, I'm going to need you to let go!" She didn't want to put them in harm's way anymore than she already had.

"I'm not letting go!" Gray insists, tears brimming in his eyes.

"You have to!" She gritted through her teeth, oh god did those claws hurt!

"But you promised you'd never leave us!"

"I know what I said, but right now, you have to let go of me, please!"

Seeing the desperate, pleading look in her eyes, he realized that he wasn't helping her by clinging on. So Gray reluctantly loosened his grip and let her go, sending him and his brother sprawling onto the street below.

They scrambled to their feet, watching helplessly as Zara was carried away.


	11. Chapter 11

_Disclaimer: Jurassic World and the Jurassic Park franchise are the property of Universal Studios, Michael Crichton, Steven Spielberg and Colin Trevorrow. I own nothing from this story aside from the plot._

 _Authors Note: Greetings readers, sorry for the late update again but February turned out a lot busier than it had any right to be, and that caused a big slowdown in my writing. Unfortunately, I will busy for the next two weeks cause of exams, so no updates for a while. I'd like to thank my friends for helping me beta this chapter and to all of my readers and reviewers, you guys are awesome!_

 _Kyranol1: Thanks for the review and sorry for making you react that way. But if you hated the ending for the last one, you might not like this one._

 _UPDATE: Added line breaks during some of the POV changes. Thanks for the suggestion, Kyranol1!_

 _Comments, criticisms and suggestions are always welcome, I always love reading them. Feel free to point out any mistakes, grammatical or otherwise._

The Pterosaur brought her high into the air before dropping her. She fell into the waiting claws of another one that gripped her by the legs.

Looking down at Main Street, she saw blue waters creep into her vision, her eyes widening in horror and a chill going down her spine as she realized where the Pterosaur was taking her.

'Not good, not good, not good.'

The phrase repeated itself over and over in her mind as she tried desperately to look for a way to free herself from its claws; she remembered the reports from the cleanup teams, of how they found Dr. Sorkin's half-digested corpse inside of a dead Tylosaur and she was determined not to meet the same fate.

Her heart raced as she tried to figure out a way to escape.

Adrenaline coursed through her veins; survival instincts kicking in as she realized she had a way of escaping.

The rifle, she could use the rifle.

Her arms screamed out in pain as she tried moving them, but one way or another, Zara managed to unsling the tranquilizer rifle from her bloodied shoulders and held it tight in her hands. The blue waters of the Mosasaur tank were looming closer and closer.

Taking a deep breath, she heaved herself backwards, then swung forwards and up, keeping the rifle tight against her shoulder and her eyes straight down the reflex sight. She only had one chance to make this shot, the thought of dying as a Mosasaur's snack made her determined not to miss.

At the apex of her swing, she let out a soft exhale and squeezed the trigger, sending a high velocity dart into the animal's neck. The effects of the tranquilizer was instantaneous and soon she felt the pterosaurs grip on her legs weaken and let go.

The British woman realized too late that in her mad dash to avoid being lunch for the Mosasaur that she was going to fall onto hard concrete.

Zara fell, and fell, cursing herself for not thinking it through.

'Really didn't think this one through, did you Young?'

As if fate itself was determined to keep her alive, a pterosaur happened to be flying under her and she landed on it. But the sheer force of her landing caused it to drop from the sky, sending the animal crashing into a store skylight.

She fell unconscious when she landed, the pterosaur managing to cushion her fall as glass rained down on both of them.

As the dust settled, Zara awoke, gasping and coughing to life. She was dazed and confused at what just occurred. Her head was pounding, her ears were ringing and pain lanced throughout her entire body. But against all the agony that her body was feeling, The British woman managed to will it to move. Sitting tiredly against a nearby wall, she looked down and saw why; a six inch long piece of glass had lodged itself in her thigh. Probably from when the pterosaur crashed into the skylight.

Gritting her teeth, she gripped the shard of glass embedded in her thigh with both of her hands. Taking quick breaths, she closed her eyes and pulled.

Hard.

Zara held back a scream as the glass was quickly and painfully pulled out of her thigh, panting for breath when it was done.

But then came another problem. With nothing left to hold back the pressure, blood gushed profusely down her leg. The British woman looked around for something to tie around her leg, to at least stem the bleeding until she could find proper medical attention.

Looking around, she found a discarded shirt and tore a scrap of cloth from it, tying it into a tourniquet.

Zara rose to her feet shakily, using the shelves around her for support. She lamented the fact the two things she did to save herself only caused more harm.

Limping slowly to the exit, she had only one of objective on her mind.

Find Claire and the boys.

* * *

Claire and Owen found the two boys huddled inside the park gift shop, Zach comforting Gray who sobbed uncontrollably next to him.

She immediately went up to the two of them, putting her arms around them, relieved that they seemed to be unharmed. The two returned the hug, Gray clinging tightly to her.

"It's ok, it's ok. You're safe now."

But when she pulled back Claire noticed that something was wrong, that there seemed to be someone missing.

"Where's Zara? Where is she? Is she safe? Please-please tell me she's safe…." Claire asked Gray, but the tearful expression on his face was enough for her to know.

Zach spoke up, "She didn't make it, Aunt Claire. Zara got picked off by a pterosaur trying to save us."

It floored her, and her heart clenched at the thought of Zara dead. Death seemed to follow Claire today, like a haunting specter that refused to leave her be and now it seemed to claim the love of her life as well.

'No, there's still a chance,' She thought to herself, 'she could still be alive. Unless we find a body, there's still a chance.'

"Owen, we can find her right?" Claire asked, turning to face the raptor handler. "She's out there, we can still find her."

Owen saw the flash of pain in her eyes, sympathizing with her loss. But all he could do was put a hand on her shoulder for comfort. "We won't stop looking for her, Claire. I promise you."

* * *

Zara lay on the ground, groaning in pain. Moving her legs only served to aggravate the wound in her thigh and she collapsed after walking only a few feet forward. She gritted her teeth together as she pushed herself up, trying to force herself to stand but her legs couldn't support her weight and soon she found herself on the ground again.

It then dawned on her; she was going to die here, alone.

Zara was never going to meet her parents again, never going to spend another day with the boys and most of all, she was never going to be with Claire again; never again waking up to find green eyes staring lovingly at her or falling asleep with soft arms circling her waist.

The thought of that broke her, tears springing to her eyes as despair consumed her.

* * *

Claire was frozen in shock, at a loss for what to do.

"Claire." Owen said, tapping her on the shoulder.

None of this was supposed to happen, Zara was supposed to keep the boys company while she was handled the Verizon executives and Mr. Masrani. She was going to meet them in time for dinner and then send the boys to their room. Then, she and Zara were going to go to their penthouse, order a bottle of champagne to celebrate the successful sponsorship negotiations and retreat to their bedroom for some more 'celebrations'.

"Claire."

The Indominus wasn't supposed to escape and Zara wasn't supposed to sacrifice herself to save the boys.

"Claire!"

Her head spun, her fingers trembled and her heart raced. She closed her eyes to try and drown out the noise around her.

"Claire, focus!"

Claire jerked her head back to look at the raptor handler.

"What?!" She asked, irritation clear on her face.

"I need to go check something out, I saw a pterosaur crash into that store across the street."

"Why? We have to get the boys to safety fir-"

"I saw someone on it," He replied.

A sudden sense of panic surged through her; could it be? Was it possible?

"Is it Zara?"

Owen shook his head, "I don't know, but it could be her."

"It's probably Zara, I have to go. I have to go now!" She said, quickly bolting out of the store.

"No, Claire, Wait, wait, wait!"

She tuned his protests out as she pushed her way through the crowd, Owen and the boys lagging far behind her.

As she reached the crash site, Claire frantically looked around for something, anything that would tell her that it was Zara. Then she heard shattering glass and rushed into the ruin.

Her heart skipped a beat when she found her; Zara was hurt.

Badly.

She immediately rushed over, calling to the other woman.

* * *

Even though her vision was fading from the blood loss, Zara could still hear someone calling out to her, someone with striking red hair and the most beautiful pair of green eyes she ever saw.

"Claire," She whispered shakily, her hand outstretched, trying to reach for her. She was so close, so agonizingly close. The British woman tried to muster as much strength as she could, being so close to Claire gave her that push she needed and she pushed herself to her feet through sheer willpower.

She limped slowly towards the redhead, her feet trembling with each step she took.

Unfortunately, willpower alone wasn't enough to overcome the multitude of injuries she received and she fell down again. But Claire quickly caught her, pulling the other woman to her feet.

"Zara, Zara?" She said, trying to get her to respond. "Come on, talk to me."

The response she received surprised her as the British woman looped her arms around Claire's neck and pulled her into a deep kiss.

All the tension of the past few hours seemed to fade as their lips moved against one another, the noise around them fading into the background until it was just the two of them showing each other how much they missed the others presence. For a moment, Zara was in disbelief that Claire was there, as if she was experience a dying dream, but when she opened her eyes the other woman was still in front of her.

The two of them pulled away from each other, panting for breath.

"Hey." Zara said, smiling.

"Hi."

"I can't believe you came." Tears were welling in her eyes. "I-I thought I was dead."

"There was no way I was leaving this island without you. Now let's take you to the clinic and get you patched up, ok?" When she didn't respond, Claire grew worried, "Zara, Zara?"

Zara tried to stay awake, trying to hang onto every word that the other woman was saying, but soon her vision started to blur and the pain was becoming too much for her.

She slumped forward, falling limply into Claire's arms.


	12. Chapter 12

_Disclaimer: Jurassic World and the Jurassic Park franchise are the property of Universal Studios, Michael Crichton, Steven Spielberg and Colin Trevorrow. I own nothing from this story aside from the plot._

When Owen, Zach and Gray finally managed to navigate through the panicked mob, it was to find Claire laying Zara on the floor, checking her for injuries.

"You two stay here, it could be bad." Owen said before he rushed inside to crouch down next to the redhead.

"How is she?" Owen asked. "Claire?"

Claire stammered, trying to focus her thoughts enough to make coherent sentences. "Umm, she has a pulse but its weak and her leg, right leg. It's bleeding."

The raptor handler looked at the injured area in question, "She put a tourniquet on," He said, relieved.

"Owen, we have to get her to the clinic."

He nodded, "I'll carry her."

Owen gently scooped up the unconscious woman's body, making sure to put his hand on her neck for support and hurried out the door, Claire and the boys not far behind.

"This place filled up quickly," Zach quipped as they approached the clinic.

Claire thought that was an understatement as the doors slid open. She looked at the crowded waiting area; adults were groaning in pain, kids were crying, and the medical staff were a blur as they hurried to and fro. The receptionist and some of the nurses were dealing with a mile long line of people, many of which were badly injured.

Claire stopped a beleaguered looking nurse who was rushing to the operating room, her arms full of blood bags.

"We need help, it's my girlfriend. She's injured and needs medical attention." Claire said.

A look that was a mixture of depression and panic shot across her face as she looked at the ever increasing line of injured patients. She removed the look as quick as it came and turned to Clair, shaking her head, "Ma'am I'm sorry, but you're going to have to wait. We're getting patients in by the dozen and there isn't enough staff on hand to treat her right now."

"Isn't there something you can do?!" Claire screamed. "She's lost a lot of blood, you have to help her."

The nurse felt sympathy for her; she wanted to help her out but at the moment they didn't have enough staff to handle everyone. "The best thing we can do right now is put her in triage, but with the patient load we have right now you're looking at 2 to 3 hours tops."

Owen turned to her, "Claire, we can go to the raptor paddock. There's an infirmary there. Barry and I could help patch Zara up."

Finding no other solution, Claire agreed to his plan and they rushed outside. A helicopter suddenly passed by, bearing the Ingen logo on its tail. The group looked up, it looked to be heading east, to the raptor paddock.

Owen and Claire exchanged a look of understanding between each other.

 _Hoskins._

He had to be behind all of this.

"That son of a bitch," Owen muttered.

Claire pulled out her phone. "Lowery, give me a sitrep. Why is there an Ingen Chopper in the air and why the hell is it headed to the raptor paddock? Please tell me I'm just seeing things."

In the control room, the computer technician ducked into a supply closet, keeping his voice low so as not to be overheard. "Unfortunately, no. The board of directors gave the INGEN private security division emergency powers. Hoskins is in charge. He's got this crazy idea to use the raptors."

Claire narrowed her eyes, angry at having her authority overridden. "What?! What do you mean use the raptors?"

Owen stared up at it, filling with rage. But before he could do anything, there was a sudden pounding coming from the metal gate at the end of the alley that lead to Main Street. The metal gate burst open, scared tourists were trying to escape from a pterosaur perched onto the Spinosaurus skeleton, it was spreading its wings and roaring at the visitors. They stampeded down the narrow corridor toward Owen, Claire, Zach, and Gray. The four of them backed away from the mob, but there was nowhere to run.

Claire gave a quick assessment of their surroundings and spotted a mobile veterinary unit with its doors left wide open right behind. "Get in the car! Move!"

The four of them ran to the vehicle, Owen lagging behind due to carrying Zara's extra weight in his arms.

Zach and Gray scrambled into the front seat along with Claire. Owen quickly hopped in the rear compartment, strapping Zara into a stretcher before closing the doors. He pounded on the small window that connected the rear compartment to the front, "Claire, get us out of here!"

"Go,go,go!" Zach and Gray yelled, looking out the window at the panicked mob approaching them.

Claire threw the gear into reverse, put her foot to the floor, and backed away from the approaching tide of people, honking wildly to get people to back away from the oncoming vehicle. Seeing a side alley, she swerved into it to escape the oncoming tide of tourists.

The four of them sighed in relief, thankful for the brief reprieve.

* * *

Night fell across the island. The car drove quickly through the jungle, its headlights illuminating the path ahead. Owen, who sat in the back to keep tabs on Zara's condition, slid open the window to the front. "Claire, we need to stop."

The redhead put her foot off the gas and applied pressure to the brakes. The medical transport slid to a stop on the service road. Claire turned to the back to face him. "Why, what's wrong?"

"I need your help. The tourniquet on her leg has been on for too long, if we leave it on any longer it'll cause muscle damage. I'm going to redress it."

She nodded, telling the boys to stay in the front before heading out to the rear of the vehicle.

Owen swung the doors open, letting Claire climb in while he prepped the equipment. He pulled out some medical supplies from the cabinets and placed them on the tables below it. He then gave Claire a pair of rubber gloves after putting on his own.

"What do you need me to do?" Claire asked as she put the gloves on.

"When I take the tourniquet off, you take this." He said, handing her a clean, rolled up towel. "And press down on her wound, then take it off when I tell you to. We clear?"

She gave him a firm nod in reply.

They set to work, Owen removing and Claire applying pressure as instructed. He quickly started to clean the wound before putting fresh dressing on it and wrapping it securely with a bandage.

All things considered, it was a successful operation. But there was still a lot more to be done before he could consider Zara's condition to be stable.

"That was good, but we need to keep moving." He said.

Claire exited and returned to the driver's side, shifting the car into gear and driving off.

After a ten minute drive through the jungle, the bright lights of the compound were visible. Ingen soldiers were milling around the area, patrolling or unloading their gear from nearby vehicles.

As the car slowed to a stop near the raptor paddock, a smug looking Vic Hoskins approached the group disembarking from it, gleefully declaring, "Ah! I see the mother hen has returned."

The car doors flew open and a very pissed off Owen and Claire walked up to him. Owen looked like he was ready to punch him for his stupidity but before he could do so, Claire leaped onto Hoskins and started a vicious assault on him.

"You son of a bitch, you wanted this to happen!" She said, barely holding back her rage as she wailed on him with her fists. Soon though, Claire felt Owen pulling her away from the head of security. She pushed angrily against Owen's hold on her.

"Get out of here," He said, barely able to hold the redhead. "And stay away from my animals!"

"Jesus Christ! How many more people have to die before this mission makes sense to you?!" Hoskins said as he stood up, angry that they wouldn't see the reason behind him using the raptors.

Barry appeared, "It's a field test, not a mission."

Owen set Claire down, fully anticipating that she would try to push past him and get at Hoskins. He was right and managed to grip her arm before she could do any damage.

"Claire, Claire. You need to listen to me, whatever it is that you're feeling right now, just let it go. Just calm down, can you do that?" He whispered.

She reluctantly nodded, taking long shuddering breaths through gritted teeth to calm herself.

"This is an INGEN situation now." Hoskins said, dusting himself off. "There are gonna be cruise ships here at first light tomorrow. Everybody is gonna get off this island and you know what the news is gonna say? They're going to talk about the civilians that we rescued- no,no,no- better yet, the civilians that _your_ raptors rescued..."

An Ingen operative came up, nodding to Hoskins. "Sir, we're all geared up."

"Let's move it out!" he said, twirling his hands in the move sign and then turned to face Owen and Claire again. Regardless of the sanity of his plan, they had to do whatever they could to protect the civilians from the Indominus. "This is happening! _With_ or _without_ you, Owen!"

Owen looked to Barry for advice, who could only shake his head. "They've never been out of containment before. This is crazy…"

Turning to Claire yielded a similar shake of the head.

He paused, thinking it over. Letting the raptors loose was dangerous, there was no telling what could happen, but Hoskins looked determined to use them, come hell or high water.

But he had no choice, he had to go. He had to be there to minimize any collateral damage that his raptors and Hoskins' insane plan could cause.

"I'll go with your plan, but give me an hour. I have an injured civilian in that car who needs immediate medical attention. Me and Barry are the only people who can handle her."

Hoskins grudgingly nodded, "Fine..."

"Barry, go get the stretcher from the car into the operating room."

The Frenchman quickly nodded, going over to the rear of the medical transport.

Barry quickly opened the car door, muttering a soft, "Merde," when he saw Zara's condition. The Frenchman carefully moved the stretcher out of the car, wheeling her into the infirmary.

Owen and Claire followed him inside, the two boys not far behind.

The raptor handler stopped her at the door as she tried to follow him inside. Claire looked at him, pleading, "Owen, just-just promise me she'll be ok…"  
"We'll try our best, Claire, that's all I can promise you."

She clutched Owen's jacket, pounding desperately at his shoulders. "It's not good enough!"

"I know and I'm sorry." Owen said, removing her hands from his jacket, "But it's all I can do."

That was the last thing he said before shutting the doors.

Claire's life was falling apart right before her, she was on the verge of losing everything. The park she worked so hard for was going to be shut down by the next morning and the woman she loved was currently lying unconscious in an operating room.

She felt drained, her legs started to shake. After all the events that she experienced, all Claire did was sit down on the floor outside the surgery room, buried her face into her hands and cried. Her sobs subsided when she felt a head settle on her shoulder.

Claire looked down and saw Gray looking at her, eyes shining with unshed tears. She snaked an arm around his shoulders, giving them a light squeeze to try and comfort him.

"What's wrong?" She asked.

"No offence Aunt Claire, Shouldn't we be asking _you_ that question?"

"Is Aunt Zara going to be okay?" Gray cut in.

"She'll be fine, Zara's a fighter." Claire said reassuringly. "She'll get through this."

That last statement was more for herself.

Thirty agonizing minutes later, she heard the sound of the operating room doors opening and stood up, anxious to hear any news.

Owen and Barry went up to her after they discarded their bloody surgical equipment. They told her that they managed to Stabilize Zara's condition was done but whether or not she was going to wake up was something that's up to Zara herself.

They left the room, taking the boys with them to give Claire some alone time.

Claire stood near the infirmary entrance, gazing at Zara as she lay unconscious on the infirmary bed. Her eyes glistened and her throat tightened as she slowly made her way inside, the only sound in the room was the steady beeping coming from the heartbeat monitor and the click clack of her heels.

She could see Zara's gray jacket was draped on a chair near the bed and there was also a pair of crutches propped up against it, in case she needed to walk.

Claire slid her fingers over the beds railing, her eyes taking in the other woman's breathing as her chest rose and fell steadily, the rips and tears in her clothes and the myriad scratches and bruises that covered her body, from the scratches on her arms to the wraps on her shoulders that covered the deep gashes from the pterosaur's claws.

As she sank into the chair, Claire couldn't believe what she was seeing, blinking her eyes to try and rid herself from this nightmare but she couldn't. The sight of the woman she loved, bloodied and battered in front of her was very real. She clasped Zara's hand in her own, choking back a sob at how cold it felt.

"Hey Zara, It's me…. It's Claire," She said, looking at the other woman.

"I know I might not be your most favorite person in the world right now, but I just really needed someone to talk to and you've always been there to listen to my problems."

Hearing no response, she continued.

"You had me worried back there you know? When I asked the boys where you were and they said you got picked off trying to help them, you wouldn't believe how scared I was..." She tucked a few loose strands of Zara's hair behind her ear and her knuckles ghosted over a gash on the woman's cheek.

Claire continued, barely holding back tears, "I feel like this is all my fault. I was so focused on my work that I neglected my family and the only woman that I ever loved, now look what's happened. Karen will probably never want to speak to me again after this and-and I'm not even sure if you're going to make it," The park manager swallowed thickly, trying to maintain composure but the tears that slipped down her face said otherwise.

"What I'm trying to say is I'm sorry, I should've been out there with you today, god knows I should've been. Then none of this would've happened, we would've spent a day having fun with the boys, the Indominus would still be contained and we would be in each other's arms right now, at home, instead of in this infirmary."

"So I need you to pull through this, ok? The boys need you, I need you and I don't know what I'd do without you. I don't know if I could even move on, you were always the reliable one, always there for me when I needed you. You're my rock Zara and I need you, now more than ever..."

"Just please, open your eyes or say something, anything. I need to know that you're going to be ok, don't leave me…." She pleaded, tears flowing freely now as she clung to the other woman's hand like a lifeline, fearful of what would happen if she let go.

She felt the hand she was holding squeeze back and the other woman's eyes fluttered open, her green eyes staring into Claire's own.

"It'll take a lot more than that to put me down, I can assure you that." Zara chuckled.

"You're ok! Thank god you're okay…." Claire smiled, not caring how broken her voice sounded as she buried her face into the other woman's chest.

"It's ok, just let it all out." Zara stroked the other woman's hair as she sobbed, running her fingers through Claire's fiery locks. "It's alright, we're both safe and we're both going to get off this island alive."

"I'm sorry, this is all my fault." She said, pulling back to look the other woman in the eye.

"You don't have to beat yourself up over this, Claire." Zara replied, taking hold of one of Claire's hand in hers. "Everything that happened to me today were because of my choices. I chose to go into the restricted area and I chose to step in front of the boys when that pterosaur was about to attack, you weren't responsible."

"But I should've been there. What will your parents say? They're not going to let me see you anymore when they find out I let you get hurt like this…."

"You should've yes, but you can't change the past, Claire." She said, gently squeezing Claire's hand. "And my parents can deal with this, Mum would fuss over me for a few days, probably ask me what the hell I was thinking and Dad….He'd probably do the same, then maybe give me a pat on the back for thinking on my feet like that."

After a pause, she added, "So, mind telling me what happened after I blacked out?"

* * *

After briefing the INGEN soldiers on his plan, Owen went to check on the velociraptors. He approached the cage cautiously, the raptors were bucking and screeching inside their restraints.

"Easy, Blue." Owen said, bending down to stroke Blue's head. The raptor seemed to calm down, even though she still snarled and hissed as Owen fiddled with the camera harness on her head. "You don't scare me."

Zach and Gray curiously observed the interaction from outside, absolutely fascinated at the sight of a raptor up close.

"Owen!" Gray called out. "Are they safe?"

"Not particularly, no." He honestly replied.

"What are their names?" Zach asked.

Owen turned around, pointing to each raptor. "I'd like you to meet Echo, Delta, and Charlie. The one you saw me with is Blue, she's our beta."

"Then who's the alpha?"

"You're looking at him." He replied, giving them a cheeky grin

Gray gasped in amazement. "Woah, that's so cool."

Claire and Zara walked up to group as Owen chatted with the boys. Claire had an arm wrapped around her shoulders, supporting Zara as she used the crutches.

As they came closer to the raptor cage, Gray turned around and caught sight of them. The boys immediately rushed over to the couple, giving Zara a tight hug.

She hugged them both back tightly as Gray burrowed his face into her neck, sobbing. The British woman stroked his back to try and sooth him, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'll never do that again, I promise."

Owen exited the cage and approached her, smiling. "Glad to see you up and about."

"Thanks." Zara said.

"So, what's the plan?" Claire asked. Zara leaned in, curious to hear the details.

"We're going to run a scent drill. I'll let the raptors sniff the Indominus out and herd it into a kill zone. Once we have it boxed in, it's pretty self-explanatory from there."

"You're sure this will work?"

Owen nodded. "Positive, I've done this a million times before. The pig's just a lot bigger now."

Barry came over, "Owen, it's time."

Before he left, Owen left Claire a portable tablet so she could see their progress.

* * *

Claire opened the backdoor of the Mobile Veterinary Unit. Zach and Gray got inside, sitting on the rear seats. "If you need us, we'll be right up front," She said, trying to reassure them. "Just open that window, ok?" She pointed to the small window connecting the back and front compartment.

The boys nodded.

"Now just put your seatbelts on." She said. The boys looked around, finding no seatbelts. "Okay," She sighed, "Then just….hold hands."

Claire closed the door and went to the front, supporting Zara as she walked alongside her. She opened the door and helped her into the seat, then made her way to the driver side.

Once inside the car, Zara snuggled up to Claire, hooking her arm around hers and settling her head on the other woman's shoulder.

She sighed, exhausted. "Been a long day, hasn't it?"

Claire let out a long drawn out sigh as well, burying her face into Zara's hair. "Yeah, but you and the boys are ok, and right now that's all that matters."

Back by the Velociraptor pen, Owen unfolded a bloody towel, revealing the tracker that the Indominus ripped out of its shoulder. He walked down the line of cages, letting each raptor sniff the device. They were eager to find the source of the scent and kill it, bucking and screeching in their cages.

"That's it, that's it..." He said, "Sniff it out."

In the control Hoskins watched the proceedings with barely restrained glee, oblivious to the wary look Lowery was giving him. "This is awesome," Hoskins said.

Owen went to his motorcycle and fastened a camera to the handle bars, slinging his rifle over his shoulder and revved the engine.

Barry hopped on to an ATV, mounting a GPS tracking system to his vehicle and storing his revolver in a thigh holster. He turned to Owen, nodding.

They were ready.

Owen signaled to the young animal handler he saved earlier in the day. The handler was holding the release switch to open the raptor cages. Owen nodded at him to give the all clear and the young man pressed the switch.

Sirens blared as the gate opened and like bats out of hell, The Velociraptors burst from their cages at lightning speed, eager to find their prey.

Owen sped forward to keep track of his raptors. Barry came up behind him on the ATV while the INGEN soldiers followed behind them in their tactical vehicles.

The hunt was on.

* * *

On the tablet, Claire could see the team reach a clearing in the middle of the jungle. The raptors stopped first, heads low as they sniffed at the jungle floor.

The rest of the team stopped and got off of their vehicles, weapons at the ready and started scanning the surroundings while Owen took point. "They found something." He said.

Behind her, the boys slid open the window to see what was going on.

The squad traversed through the jungle, with only the moonlight and the raptors acting as their guides, finally stopping at a thick row of trees. The raptors snarled and hissed at the tree line.

They had found it.

Owen, Barry and some of the soldiers took cover behind a thick log while the rest took cover among the nearby trees.

In the car, Claire realized that the boys were watching. "No, no. This isn't appropriate for you." She closed the window, disregarding their protests. When she wasn't watching, Zara slowly slid the shutter back open, giving the boys a thumbs up.

Back in the jungle, the ground and tree line began to shake as the Indominus approached. The soldiers anxiously scanned the surroundings. The trees parted, the center changing color from green to white as the massive predator de-camouflaged. It peered curiously at the raptors, cocking its head to one side.

The soldiers tensed, tightening their grips on the guns as they switched into a firing stance.

Through the video feed, Zara could see multiple slash marks covering the animal's face. _Probably Royce's handiwork,_ she thought with a sense of pride. He went down fighting, like he always wanted to.

The velociraptors reared up and sniffed the air, they observed the huge carnivore with an odd sense of familiarity almost. They screeched a challenge at the animal.

The Indominus roared back, letting out a roar that sounded eerily similar to the raptors own screeches.

The pack tilted their heads, confused. They started screech back and forth with the Indominus. Their bodies started to relax.

"Something's not right." Barry said to Owen, sensing something odd. "They're communicating."

The men continued to observe the interaction between the raptors and the Indominus, growing more anxious by the minute.

Back in the car, Zara tensed up, her blood running cold as she realized why the animals could communicate with each other. She looked over to Claire only to see a mirrored expression of shock come across her face.

The Indominus was _part raptor_.

She saw the raptors turn towards the men, but the look in their eyes changed; they weren't hunting the Indominus anymore.

They were hunting humans.

In the jungle, the soldiers were in a tense standoff with the dinosaurs, unsure of what to do. Their fingers were on the triggers of their weapons. They had a clear shot at the animal; all they were waiting for was the order to fire.

Meanwhile, Hoskins had had enough of waiting around. They needed to act and they need to do it now. He picked up the communicator and spoke into it, "Light 'em up!"

"Weapons free! Weapons Free!" A soldier shouted, squeezing the trigger on his assault rifle. The rest followed suit and soon the forest was echoing with gun fire. Their rounds managed to connect with the Indominus but with very few managing to penetrate its armored hide, they might as well have been firing BB guns at it.

The Indominus and the raptors ran off into the jungle, disappearing from view.

One soldier readied his AT-4 rocket launcher and fired at the Indominus. The missile streaked across the jungle and missed it entirely, hitting a cluster of trees, setting them on fire. The Indominus was hit by the explosion, collapsing to the ground but it quickly recovered and ran off again.

"Keep an eye on your six!" Owen said as they walked deeper into the jungle. "Raptor's got a new alpha."

A soldier walked carefully through the jungle, sweeping his M4 back and forth. Out of the corner of his eye, He could just make out the coloring of the raptor's gray flesh as it moved behind the bushes up ahead, stopping near a log just enough for the head to peek over. Thinking he had a moment, the soldier went down on one knee and snaked his finger into the trigger guard, preparing to take aim.

His mouth twitched into a slight smile as he centered his scope on the animal.

One shot, one kill.

His smile faded however when he saw something drip onto his rifle. When he looked closer, the soldier saw that it was drool. He slowly looked upwards….

Only to be greeted by the Indominus staring down at him, growling and snarling. A million questions raced through his mind; had it been there whole time? How could he have been so stupid? Why did he forget that it could camouflage?

None of that mattered when the Indominus opened its toothy maw and launched itself at the frozen trooper, mercifully ending his life in one bite. Two soldiers nearby spotted the large carnivore and prepared to fire but were immediately assaulted by raptors that came at them from behind. The raptors tore into them as they screamed helplessly.

Owen ran past the dead soldiers. In the long grass up ahead he could see Charlie tearing into a corpse. The raptor handler stopped as she spotted him. He braced himself for the attack but it never came, she only tilted her head curiously.

Owen thought for a moment that maybe the raptors could still listen to him.

But before he could do anything, a nearby soldier fired his rocket launcher at the animal. The explosion knocked him off his feet and threw him to ground. Owen got to his feet, devastated.

Charlie was gone.

In another part of the jungle, Barry was running for his life as the INGEN soldiers around him were being picked off by raptors one by one. Seeing a hollow log, he immediately ducked into it just before a raptor launched itself at him.

From inside, he could hear the raptor walk closer to him as it scratched and clawed at the wood. The head broke through and he could see the raptor looked familiar. It was Blue.

Owen ran back to the vehicles and leapt onto his motorcycle, starting the engine. He could see Blue nearby, clawing into a piece of wood. He revved the bike's engine and whistled to get her attention, then sped off. The raptor narrowed her eyes and chased after the vehicle.

Barry sighed, he was safe. For now.

Bursts of gunfire could be heard reverberating through the jungle as the soldiers tried desperately to eliminate the Indominus and the raptors.

Back in the mobile veterinary unit, the occupants could only watch the events unfold with open mouthed horror.

"Did you know?" Zara asked Claire accusingly, pulling away to look her in the eyes.

Claire stuttered, "I-I-I…."

" _Did. You. Know?!"_

"No! I didn't know! Ok?" She shot back. "Henry never told me anything. I know just as much as you do."

"Is everybody dead?" Gray asked, terrified.

Zara opened her mouth to say something but Claire cut her off. "No, everyone's fine," She said calmly, shutting the tablet off.

"Don't lie to him," Zach said.

Zara cast her a doubtful look as well.

"He's scared," Claire said, looking at her. "It's okay to lie when people are scared."

Gray moved closer to the window. "I'm ready to go home now."

"You will, sweetie. We promise." Zara said, cupping his cheek. Claire added, "Yeah, tomorrow you'll be home. And your mother will never let you see us—"

Anything else she wanted to say was cut off as an INGEN soldier pressed a bloody hand to the driver side window. "Run, get out of here! Go!" he yelled.

Claire and Zara screamed as the redhead fumbled for the keys. The wounded soldier limped around to the back of the vehicle and opened the rear door. But the boys saw the shadow of something approaching from behind him.

"They're coming!" was all he said before Echo leapt onto him, digging her claws into his back.

The engine roared to life and Claire floored the accelerator, speeding off, causing Echo and the soldier's body to fall away. In the driver's seat, Zara noticed a shadow approaching in the distance.

"GET DOWN!" she shouted just before Delta's head broke through the driver side window, tearing at the seat just as Claire managed to duck her head out of the way. She floored the gas but the raptor clung on, adamantly trying to get to her.

Seeing no other option, Zara decided to get physical, using her uninjured leg to deliver several powerful sharp kicks to the raptor's skull, " . !" She repeated kicking it enough times for it to lose its grip and fall off the vehicle.

Zach and Gray watched as Delta rolled across the road, slowing to a stop beside Echo. The boys sighed in relief as the car left the raptors behind. The raptors however weren't about to give up and resumed the chase.

Zara checked the side mirrors to see if they were far enough away but her eyes widened at the sight of the raptors catching up to the vehicle. "Must go faster." She said, turning to face Claire.

The redhead drove as fast as she could through the rough dirt road but the raptors still managed to catch up. Seeing Delta approaching the vehicle's left side, Claire swerved to the left and managed to knock her down.

"Are you boys ok back there?" Zara asked, turning around to see how the boys were doing just in time to see them shock Echo with a cattle prod. The raptor tumbled out of the vehicle, rolling in the dust.

Zach turned to face her, yelling triumphantly "Did you see that?"

"I can't wait to tell mom!" Gray shouted.

"Oh please no!" Claire replied through the window. "Do not tell your mother about that, ever!"

She turned to face Zara, who could hopefully talk some sense into the two but the British woman could only shrug and say, "I don't know, maybe they can tell Karen a little bit."

That was met with two enthusiastic cheers.

Claire could only shake her head.

Owen, who finally caught up to them sped up and drove alongside Claire's window. "We gotta get indoors, come on!"

Claire passed her phone to Zara, "Get Lowery on the phone and tell him to call in a helicopter for us."

The other woman nodded, quickly dialing his number and pressing the phone to her ear.

Owen sped up ahead and Claire followed closely behind.

* * *

Claire and Owen drove through the abandoned Main Street as they made their way to the Innovation Center. It was certainly an eerie sight, hours ago it was filled with tourists now it was dead silent. Even the clinic lay abandoned when it was filled patients just before. Claire thought that maybe they had transferred all the patients elsewhere.

They stopped and parked their vehicles. Claire quickly exited the driver side and helped Zara out, looping her arm around the other woman's shoulders to help her walk; she ditched the crutches, they'd just slow them down.

Owen and the boys ran through the genetics lab to get to the control, Claire and Zara close behind but when they passed through Henry Wu's office they stopped, noticing shadows moving behind the backstage area in his office.

"That's odd," Claire said, taking a look around. "They evacuated."

Zara was perplexed as well, the genetic material and the embryos could last indefinitely with the power grid still on and even with the backup generators they had a lifespan of eight weeks. So why did the genetics staff just up and leave?

They entered the hidden lab, finding glass cages and aquariums filled with a menagerie of genetically modified hybrids. A vibrant yellow salamander with a large green dorsal fin. A feathered iguana. A triple headed albino python. A caiman with shark's gills and teeth.

All of them turned when they heard the sound of a locks snapping open, turning to see a pair of INGEN contractors insert tubes of embryos and DNA samples into a cold storage device, locking it shut and wheeling it out of the lab.

"Wait, what are you doing?" Claire asked.

Hoskins entered from the doorway, a huge grin plastered on his face. "I believe that's above your pay grade, honey."

"Where's Henry?" Claire said.

"Dr. Wu works with us." Hoskins replied. "And right now, he's on his way to one of our secure facilities. So don't you go worrying your pretty little head about his whereabouts."

Gray looked at the monitor—it showed a rotating 3D model of the Indominus Rex. "That's not a real dinosaur."

"No it ain't kid." Hoskins agreed, "But someone has to make sure that this company has a future."

"Let me guess," Zara said, brows furrowed in anger. "That person is _you_."

The head of security clapped sarcastically, "Bingo, someone please give the lady a prize!" He continued, pointing to the monitor, "Just imagine that one but a fraction of the size, intelligent, deadly, and able to hide from the most advanced military technology. A superweapon unlike anything that has ever been seen before."

"You're insane, what makes you think you can control them? What if _they_ decide they don't want to take orders anymore?" Zara said.

His eyes narrowed and he spoke in a calm, measured tone. "Like I told our dear friend Mr. Grady here this morning, we'll cull the weak and the disobedient. Only allow the strong and the loyal to flourish."

"You're crazy." Claire said.

"I'm crazy? The only crazy people in this room are all of _you_ for not realizing the potential of what we have here. What did we learn over the course of millions of years of evolution? It's that nature is just the gift that keeps on—"

He was cut off mid –speech as Delta jumped in-between them. She closed in on Hoskins, hissing at him as she backed the head of security against a fridge. "Easy, boy." He said, trying to keep the raptor at bay. "Easy."

Owen kept Zara, Claire and the boys still, covering them with his arm. Any sudden movements and they were all raptor food.

Hoskins held out his hand, trying to copy the hand sign that Owen used to calm the raptors. "Easy boy. I'm on your side."

Delta seemed to relax, tilting her head to one side. She stepped closer to him.

"That's it, see?" Hoskins said, exhaling in relief. "I'm on your side."

It did not last very long however as Delta chomped on his outstretched hand. Hoskins screamed and Delta continued her attack, mercilessly tearing him apart.

Unfortunate as his demise was, it gave the five of them the opening they needed to escape and they ran back into the main lab's hallway. Claire pointed to the elevators at the end of the hall, "Over there, come on!"

The group ran to it but were stopped short when Delta jumped through the glass wall ahead. They turned around and ran back to the center hall as the raptor whipped around to face them.

Owen, Claire, Zara and the boys ran through the hall to reach the front door. As they passed the interactive displays, Zach tapped a command on the hologram projector.

A Dilophosaurus appeared, spreading its frill and roaring. Delta stopped and prepared to attack the unexpected intruder. The distraction bought the group enough time to make it through the front doors.

They descended the steps to go back to Main Street. Blue suddenly jumped out in front of them, blocking their path. Delta burst through the double doors, snarling. Echo jumped from on top of the mobile veterinary unit.

The raptors surrounded the group from all sides, blocking any escape routes, snarling and hissing aggressively. "So that's how it's gonna be, huh?" Owen said.

Blue stepped towards him, she snarled but didn't strike. He thought that maybe the raptor still recognized him and that's why it held back. Owen dropped his rifle, holding up a hand in the calming gesture he usually used.

"Easy," He said, reaching towards the side of her face. "Easy, Blue."

His hand cautiously travelled to the camera harness, unbuckling the device from her head. The raptor relaxed.

Their moment was interrupted when the sound of thundering footsteps approached as the Indominus emerged from the side of a building, roaring menacingly.

As it reached them, Blue looked back and forth, at her new alpha and back at Owen.

He hoped the raptor would make the right call.

The indominus roared commandingly at the raptors, it wanted them to attack the humans.

But Blue stood her ground, roaring protectively.

That earned a quick swipe from the large carnivore which sent her flying into side of a building. She fell to ground, seemingly lifeless.

The other two raptors roared in challenge, daring the Indominus to take one more step. Owen grinned slightly; he had them back on his side now. He picked up his rifle and motioned for the rest to go to a nearby souvenir booth filled with hats and other merchandise; with Zara being in the condition that she was, they needed as much of a head start as possible.

Claire looked at Zara and the boys. "Ready?"

They all nodded.

"Now!" They all ran towards the booth, vaulting over the counter to get inside. The Indominus tried to follow but Owen let out a sharp whistle, signaling his raptors to attack. Charlie and Echo leapt onto its back, digging their claws and teeth in.

Zara winced in pain as she landed inside the booth. Claire turned to her, concern evident on her face, "You ok?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." She replied, "Just stings a lot is all."

They all turned at the sound of gunfire. Owen was shooting the animal while the raptors kept it distracted, relentlessly attacking it. They were fighting a losing battle, the raptors were holding their own against the Indominus but they weren't enough to bring it down.

"We need more," Gray said.

Claire and Zara turned to face him.

"We need more what?" Claire asked.

"Teeth," He replied with a firm nod. "We need more teeth."

Claire and Zara looked each other in the eyes; a non-verbal understanding seemed to have passed between them.

They knew precisely what he was talking about, there was only one animal in the park that fit the bill.

Claire grabbed a road flare and a radio from an emergency supply kit nearby. She got ready to run out but Zara's hand on her arm stopped her.

Before she could say anything, Zara cupped the back of her neck and crushed Claire's lips to hers in a passionate, emotional kiss. Their lips moved against one another hungrily, as if this one would be the last.

They pulled back from the kiss, panting for air.

"I love you," Zara said, "Come back safe, please."

Claire nodded, "I will."

With that, she ran out of the souvenir booth and into the dark.

Delta screamed in pain as the Indominus sunk her long teeth into the raptor and flung her into a cement column. The raptor's spine broke on impact, killing her instantly.

Echo screeched and dug her claws deeper into the animal but one raptor was not enough to challenge the Indominus and it quickly yanked her off its back with its jaws and clamped onto her, killing her in one bite. It threw Echo's body onto the street and turned to face Owen, the only person left who could challenge her.

With his gun dry on ammo, Owen raced across the street and into the booth, pushing the three occupants inside as far back as possible. "Where'd Claire go?"

"She has a plan." Zara replied.

"And that plan is?"

What she was about to say was cut off by Zach and Gray screaming as the Indominus tried to push its head into the small booth.

* * *

In a dark alley that ran alongside Main Street, Claire sprinted towards the huge steel door of a massive paddock, stenciled with the number 9. She pulled out her radio. "Lowery! Lowery! Are you still there?"

Lowery answered the call in the empty control room. "Claire! Where are you?"

"I need you to open Paddock Nine."

"Nine? Are you kidding?"

The Indominus' roar cut through the night. Claire steeled herself. There was no going back now. "No I'm not, now open the damn gate!"

Lowery looked hurt. "If you say so." He turned to his keyboard, bracing himself. He typed the access code and hit ENTER. "Hold on to your butts."

The alarm lights flashed and alarm klaxons blared loudly as the gate to the Tyrannosaur's paddock raised itself open. When the gate was fully opened, all Claire could see at the moment was a quiet and still forest. She lit the flare, hoping to catch the Rexes attention.

The silence seemed to stretch on, and for a fleeting moment Claire wanted to ditch the plan entirely. But then the first footfall came, a thundering stomp that shook the ground and rippled the puddles where she stood. She craned her head upwards and all Claire could see were two tiny points of red light.

As the animal stalked towards her, she realized that the lights were from the flare glinting off of the Tyrannosaur's eyes.

Shrouded in darkness, the Rex looked positively demonic, like an ancient dragon risen from slumber. It was majestic and horrifying at the same time.

Claire considered dropping the flare and running to press the manual close button to keep the Rex away from her. But soon the Tyrannosaur was upon her, eyeing her hungrily.

The Rex knew all too well what the flare meant.

 _Dinner._

And at that moment, Claire was on the menu.

She backed away slowly, leading the huge carnivore away from the paddock gates. Claire soon burst into a full on sprint as Rexy picked up her stride, snapping her jaws at the red head.

As Main Street came into view, Claire hoped to god the plan would work.

The indominus rammed her head into the souvenir booth, trying to reach Zara, Owen and the boys. But the booth was too small and the predator's massive jaws couldn't fit. It retreated and Zara sighed in relief but not long after, she felt the tiny booth shake as the Indominus rammed its head into it, causing tiny cracks to form in the structure.

Claire ran past the Spinosaur skeleton as she came on to Main Street, throwing the flare at the Indominus. The Tyrannosaur broke through the skeleton and let out a mighty roar to attract the other dinosaur.

The Indominus pulled its head away from the booth and turned to face its adversary, roaring in defiance.

The two titans stood still for a moment, facing each other, on one side; Tyrannosaurus Rex, the tyrant lizard king. Millions of years of evolution refined the lowly Coelurosaur Dilong into a predator without compare, rising to the top of the food chain of the prehistoric kingdom. An apex predator and the undisputed king of the Cretaceous period.

On the other side stood the Indominus Rex, the untamable king. Fine-tuned by the latest genetic technologies to be the ultimate killing machine, using the DNA of the best predators the prehistoric world and the modern world had to offer. A pure-bred alpha predator.

The Tyrannosaur looked, no-Glared at this annoying upstart that tried laying claim on her territory. This island was hers and if the genetic freak thought it could take her kingdom without a fight, it had another thing coming.

The street shuddered with each of the carnivore's gigantic steps as they charged at each other. Rexy drew first blood, digging her teeth into the Indominus' neck. The other animal struggled in her jaws, swiping her claws upwards in a futile attempt to damage the rex's face but she held firm, her jaws clamping down as she threw it into a nearby building, rubble collapsing on top of the animal.

As the dust settled, Rexy peered curiously at the pile of shattered concrete and glass when it shifted and the indominus launched itself out, swiping at the tyrannosaur with such a look that left no doubt in anyone's mind that she wanted the other animal dead.

The T-rex tried to back away but the Indominus was faster, landing a blow across the Rexes cheek. When the Rex was distracted it bit into her neck and forced her down onto the street, biting repeatedly into her neck.

As the two titans clashed, Claire crawled away and took cover behind some nearby sculptures.

Once she was down, the Indominus picked the T-rex up by the neck and slammed her into the souvenir booth, making the group inside back away from the Rexes jaws as it came at them.

From the outside, Claire could see that the booth was crumbling apart but the people inside were too focused on the battle to see.

"RUN!" she yelled.

Owen picked up Zara in a bridal carry and led the two boys out of the booth, barely making out in time as the Indominus slammed Rexy onto it, utterly obliterating the structure. They joined Claire by the structure, Owen setting Zara down to see the battles grim conclusion.

The Indominus stood victorious over the Tyrannosaur's battered form, one hand keeping the Rex pinned down. It opened it jaws, prepared to deliver the killing blow.

Suddenly, high pitched screeching came out of nowhere. All eyes turned to see the source of the sound and found Blue racing towards the Indominus, claws ready to strike.

She jumped onto its back, ripping and tearing at the flesh. The animal tried to shake the raptor off of it but Blue dug her claws in, holding on tightly. With the Indominus distracted, Rexy rose to her feet and lunged at the other carnivore, ramming it into a nearby building.

Zara, Claire, Owen and the boys saw the titanic struggle creep ever closer to them and ran for the safety of the park gift shop.

The Indominus fell back onto the boardwalk with a thundering crash and rose, only for Blue to jump onto its snout, biting and slashing. It flailed around in a rage, trying to dislodge the raptor from its face. The rex saw the opportunity and rammed it in the chest, sending it crashing into the fence surrounding the Mosasaur tank, destroying several sections as it did so.

Rexy and Blue roared triumphantly, forming a united front against an unnatural foe.

The Indominus stumbled to its feet, roaring defiantly. It reared back, ready to strike and lunged forward. It didn't make it very far before the Mosasaur burst from the water and clamped its jaws onto the animal. The Indominus struggled within its jaws but the aquatic reptile had a vice grip on it, refusing to let go.

The Mosasaur then slipped back into the tank, taking its prize into depths. The raging waters calmed, but the Indominus did not surface.

With the battle over, Rexy peered at Blue. The battle-scarred Tyrannosaur carefully considered whether or not to attack her momentary ally, but chose not to. She turned away and lumbered off, free for the first time in eleven years.

Blue turned to Owen but he only shook his head, he couldn't take care of her anymore. With one last look of farewell, she disappeared into the night.

* * *

It was 7 in the morning in the control room, Lowery stood alone at his console, relieved that it was all over. He had stayed behind to make sure everyone was safe; keeping the monorail running and making sure the power was still on throughout the park.

Now that everyone had already left, He had to board the chopper but there was one more important thing for him to do .The computer prompt stared at him from the main screen, waiting for his input.

INTIATE PARK SHUTDOWN?

YES/NO

Reluctantly, he hovered his cursor over yes and clicked.

GOODBYE….

The lights in the control room began to shut off one by one as he walked to the exit.

As Lowery stood in the doorway, he took one last misty eyed look at the control room and with a heavy sigh, he walked out.

As dawn broke, Zara found herself walking up to the control room's helipad, Claire supporting her as she climbed the stairs. The helicopters blades whirled to life as it waited on the landing pad. Claire helped her into her seat, then Gray and Zach into theirs. Lowery got into the seat opposite them.

After helping them into their seats, Claire walked to the edge of the platform, taking one last look at the park that she invested the last ten years of her life into.

She looked across the island, trying to burn the images and sounds into her mind; the brachiosaur's bellowing across the island, the park's main street, the island's magnificent mountain ranges and the waters of the Mosasaur tank sparkling in the sun.

Claire felt rueful leaving. All those years of work, gone to waste because of one bad day. She wished she could turn back time and fix all of this, a lone tear falling down her face at the thought.

But soon-too soon, her reverie was interrupted when she felt someone grip her arm, turning to see Owen nodding to the helicopter.

"Come on." He said softly, leading her into the chopper. "Let's go."

Once they were all inside, Owen closed the door and signaled to the pilot to takeoff.

She sat next to Zara, watching the helicopter lift off the landing pad through the window.

As the helicopter rose into the air, they looked out the windows, looking down onto the park as the helicopter flew across it.

It soared across the island, passing over the visitor center, the hotel, and finally the dock, where they could see the last boats leaving. Claire settled into her seat for the long trip back to mainland, lowering her head onto Zara's shoulder.

The British woman winced slightly from the pain but slid an arm around Claire's shoulder, squeezing to give comfort.

"Ten years, can't believe it's been ten years." Claire whispered, audible enough for just Zara to hear.

"We had a good run." Zara replied.

"We had a _great_ run." Claire said firmly. "Best ten years of my life. I was in charge of the greatest theme park the world had ever seen and I fell in love with the most beautiful, kind hearted woman I ever met."

The British woman chuckled, "Flatterer."

She sighed, closing her eyes. "I just wish it ended differently."

"At least we still have each other." Zara said. "And I'm not leaving you, ever."

The helicopter picked up speed as it headed towards the mainland. Zara took one last glance out the window and saw the island, nestled against the bright orange sky and purple sea, cloaked in a deep morning mist, fading further away until it was just a speck in the distance, a diminishing green jewel amidst the wide expanse of ocean.

 _And cut! That's a wrap._

 _Whew, that took way longer than expected and very sorry for making you guys wait a long while but finally it's here. I want to thank everyone who faved and reviewed this fic and I would like to thank my friends who helped me proofread. It's been a wild ride and I want to thank you guys for sticking around and for your patience despite the late updates, your support gave me the motivation to keep working on this fic and make it the best it could be. After this, I'm gonna release a short epilogue and go back and revise some of the old chapters to fix some grammar errors._

 _A sequel to this fic is in the works but it's not going to be out for a while._

 _Until then, I hoped that this chapter was worth the weight._

 _See you next time._


	13. Chapter 13

_Author's note: Hello again faithful readers and welcome to the final installment of this story. I'm sorry the huge delay in getting this out but college assignments have a tendency to creep up on you and ruin your day._

 _I want to thank everyone who read and reviewed this story, your feedback is always welcome and appreciated._

 _The sequel will be out by January-ish, I'm currently doing the outline for it._

 _Comments, criticism and suggestions are always welcome, I always love reading them. Now onto the story._

* * *

 **One month after the Jurassic World Incident.**

 _Claire heard the heart beat monitor flat line as Zara's chest stopped moving, the hand she was holding went limp in her grasp._

" _No, this isn't happening, this isn't happening."_

 _She tried shaking her repeatedly, "Zara, honey? Zara, wake up, come on! Don't do this, please! Wake up!"_

 _She ran outside, yelling for help at the top of her lungs, but no one was there. In fact, she wasn't even on Isla Nublar anymore. Claire found herself at a graveyard, she didn't know how she got there or what was going on but it was dark and snowing, a thick layer of fog hovered in the air, obscuring her vision._

 _Claire looked around, trying to compose and reorient herself. "Where am I?"_

 _She looked around confused, until something caught her attention. That was when she saw the headstone that stood out from all the others._

 _IN REMEMBRANCE._

 _BELOVED DAUGHTER AND LOVER._

 _ZARA YOUNG._

 _Claire's eyes widened and a knot formed in her stomach, "This is impossible, it can't be real. It can't be real…this can't be happening, this can't be happening," She muttered repeatedly ran her hand through her hair._

 _A voice called out to her, "Claire….."_

 _She'd recognize that voice anywhere, it was soft, like velvet._

 _Could it be?_

 _She turned to face the owner of the voice and found herself face to face with Zara._

 _But something wasn't right._

 _Her face was paler than usual, and her eyes, usually warm and kind were two points of cold, pure glowing white._

 _Her clothes were ripped and torn, raw muscle and bone showing through._

" _Zara? What happened to you? Where am I?" Claire asked._

" _Isn't it obvious?" The raven haired woman said, gesturing to herself. "I'm dead."_

 _Claire's eyes widened, "NO! This is impossible, you're not dead."_

 _The ghost circled around her, grinning. "What's so hard to believe Claire? The fact that I'm dead?"_

 _She came closer, whispering into Claire's ear, "Or the fact that you were the one who killed me?"_

" _I didn't kill you!" She screamed._

 _The spirit's voice darkened. "If you had bothered to just stay with me on that day, I wouldn't be dead."_

 _Claire backed away, "Shut up! You're not dead! This is just a dream, you're not real!"_

 _The ghost grinned, her teeth now razor sharp and her eyes glowing a bright blood red. "Oh, I'm real enough."_

 _That was the last thing she said before she jumped at the redhead._

* * *

Claire jolted awake, gasping for air.

She looked around the room, relief sweeping through her when she realized she was at the Mitchell house. Karen and David had let the two of them stay a while until the media frenzy blew over.

With Masrani and Hoskins dead and Wu's whereabouts unknown, all the blame fell on Claire's shoulders. As the sole authority figure left after the incident, she became a lightning rod for all the hate directed towards the park's failings and the storm was one the likes of which she had never seen.

She was at the forefront of every trial, every interview. But it wasn't her fault. She followed protocol, but she still lost. Everything about the incident was bad, and she made the best out of a very, very bad situation. But the media and the news outlets didn't care, not even when she was declared not guilty of any charges.

They just used her as a scapegoat to help their sales, so for all they cared, Claire was the mastermind behind the whole incident.

As for the fate of the park itself, it took a lot of negotiating and compromising but finally the Costa Rican government agreed to allow Jurassic World to remain standing until a complete and thorough investigation was done regarding the stability of the park.

The dinosaurs on the island were to be left unharmed, but the same couldn't be said of the Pterosaurs that escaped.

Despite how much pleading and begging she did for them to be captured and returned to the island, the Costa Rican Government and the United Nations adamantly refused. They were considered an invasive species, would become too widespread if left unchecked and so were ordered to be shot on sight.

If the lawsuits and the bad press weren't enough, there were also the nightmares she had to deal with. Every time she closed her eyes, she would find herself back in the infirmary, at Zara's bedside. It was all as she remembered.

The same sequence, over and over again, pouring her heart out to the British woman, begging her to open her eyes but Zara never woke up. She flat lined and Claire would run out screaming for help but no one would be there and she'd wake up in a cold sweat, panting.

They never stopped and lately, they've been getting even worse.

Turning to the side, Claire couldn't find the woman in question, her hand finding only warm sheets, which meant that Zara had just gotten out of bed.

With sleep eluding her, the redhead climbed out of bed and went to the bathroom to wash her face.

As she looked into the bathroom mirror, it was clear that the mental stress from everything was taking its toll on her. Her eyes were bloodshot and looked sunken in and her face was looking haggard.

Claire took deep breaths to try and calm herself and walked out.

As she walked into the main hallway, Claire was glad that the guest room was on the ground floor of the Mitchell house, which meant less stress on Zara's injured leg. She walked past the hallway, lined with pictures of family celebrations. The redhead stopped at a particular one that was bordered by a festive frame.

It was a family portrait from Christmas, two years ago.

She could see everyone in it clearly. Her aunt and uncles were there. Claire could see her parents standing next to Karen and David in the center and standing next to them were Zara's parents. Zara was standing between the boys, arms on each of their shoulders, smiling brightly at the camera. But something felt wrong about Zara, the sparkle in her eyes was a bit dimmer and the smile seemed forced.

Claire knew that smile all too well, it was the smile she had for press conferences or for media pictures, not the kind, gentle smile she usually showed.

Then, the realization hit her.

'I wasn't there.'

Everyone was there, except the woman the she loved.

* * *

 _Zara stood near the door, bags in hand. The boat was leaving in half an hour and she was desperately trying to convince Claire to come along, "Everyone's going to be there you know? All your cousins, aunts and uncles. Your parents—"_

 _Claire meanwhile, couldn't bother to look away from her laptop perched on the living room coffee table. "I'm Sorry, Zara. But this dinner is important, Mr. Masrani will be there, the board of directors and all the sponsors will be there."_

" _Claire, I specifically cleared your schedule for this month so you could come along."_

 _Claire looked up from the computer screen to reply, "I know honey, but it just came up so suddenly and Mr. Masrani expects me to be there and the board expects me there, I have to make it."_

" _But that's what you said last year…" Zara said, sighing._

" _And it's the same this year." She replied firmly, looking back to her computer screen._

" _Look, Claire—"_

 _But then, Claire's phone rang and she held up a hand, cutting Zara off mid-sentence._

" _Just a sec." She said, putting her phone to her ear. "Hi! Mr. McMahon, to what do I owe the pleasure of this call?"_

 _Zara started rubbing her forehead in frustration but as Claire kept on talking, she had enough of waiting and with a shake of her head just left, leaving the door wide open._

* * *

Claire set the picture frame back on the wall, vowing to herself that this time she wouldn't take their relationship for granted this time.

Padding into the kitchen, she found the British woman sitting at the dinner table, digging into a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Claire remembered that it was her favorite flavor.

Claire leaned against the doorframe, watching the moonlight play off of her face, making her Ivory skin look paler than usual and highlighting all the injuries she received.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Zara said, snapping Claire out of her trance.

A "Huh?" is all the other woman could reply.

"You were staring."

Claire walked to where Zara was sitting, pulled up a chair and sat down close to her, resting her head on the other woman's shoulder. "Sorry, I had a lot on my mind. Just thinking about the one good thing I still have in my life."

"Your health?" The British woman quipped, smiling slightly.

Claire intertwined her fingers and Zara's. It was such a simple action, one that almost came automatically to her so why then did part of her feel like she didn't deserve an ounce of attention from this woman.

She always pushed her aside but Zara always stood by her, always there to pull Claire back from letting her work consume her, no matter what. But what did Zara get in return? A lover who was distant and enough physical scarring and mental trauma to last a lifetime.

 _Your fault, all your fault..._ A voice in her head repeated over and over as she took in every scar that marred the once flawless skin.

"Claire, are you alright?" Zara asked softly, concern evident on her face.

"What?"

"You had this faraway look on your face, are you ok?"

"No, I was thinking about you. Ever since we took you for the job, you've stood by me. As a friend and as a lover. You never left my side. Remember when we told Mr. Masrani about us?"

Zara laughed at the memory, "Yeah, you were shaking like a leaf. I half expected you to just bolt out of the office when he came in."

Claire chuckled, her mood lifting slightly. "Yeah, I was so scared of what he might say. But then, you held my hand and all the anxiety just went away." She sighed a little before continuing, "I mean it, you know? You mean a lot to me, Zara. You made sure I had enough sleep, I ate properly, that I wasn't working myself to death."

Zara smiled at the compliment, "Flatterer…."

"I'm just sorry. Sorry for always putting work ahead of us, always missing out on our dates and anniversaries. What happened at the park was a wakeup call to me, that I shouldn't have taken what we had for granted."

Zara chuckled, "And it only took me nearly dying for you to realize that."

"Hey, no fair." Claire whined.

They paused for a while after that, taking in the sight of the sun rising on the horizon.

"What are you thinking about right now?" Zara asked.

"Right now, I think everything might turn out alright." Claire replied, settling her head on the other woman's chest, listening to her steady heartbeats.

It was true. The future was uncertain and ever-changing but as they sat in each other's arms, gazing at the sun rising on a new day, Claire thought that as long as she had Zara in her life, she could take on anything life threw at her.

* * *

 **INGEN Research Facility, parts unknown.**

Henry Wu grinned as he watched the creature move in its habitat. The animal before him was the pinnacle of genetic engineering. His engineering. It was a combination nature and human ingenuity to make it the strongest of its kind. It was much more refined than the Indominus; easily tamable, listened to commands easily and it was nigh invincible to modern weaponry.

When the Chinese Government first approached him about this project, he thought they were mad or he was lucky enough to get people who needed him, but after he was shown the plans and the specimens, Henry's mind raced with the infinite amounts of potential innovations he could see in these creatures and how he could make them reach it with the power of genetics.

But the part that he loved the most, the part that made him accept the offer was the thought that he would be remembered as the all-time great in genetics. A great innovator and pioneer of the field, and the undisputed genius of his generation. That thought filled him with the assurance that what he was doing was the right thing.

He watched the large theropod as it tackled another one of its kin to the ground. It tried in vain to get back on its feet, but the theropod jumped on its fallen brethren, planting one foot on its chest and the other square on its face. The winner lowered its head and swiftly snapped its neck like a twig in one bite.

Another one foolishly took a step forward to challenge the creature, roaring valiantly but it was to be in vain. It would fall, just like the others.

The creature simply gored it to death with its horns in reply. Once the challenger was dead, the carnivore stood triumphantly over its kill, reared its head high and roared in victory.

A grin formed on his face and he chuckled a bit.

His project was coming along nicely.

* * *

And now for a quick preview. Please enjoy this trailer.

THE FOLLOWING PREVIEW HAS BEEN APPROVED FOR  
ALL AUDIENCES  
BY THE MOTION PICTURE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA

UNIVERSAL STUDIOS

AMBLIN ENTERTAINMENT

PRESENT…

Fade in: An office, modern and high tech. A letter lies on the office table, addressed to a certain Claire Dearing.

Zara Voice over: Claire, letter for you.

Claire Voice over: You are cordially invited to attend a grand tour of the Grand Zoo of, we believe you will find our exhibits very interesting.

Zara: The Grand Zoo of China? I've never heard of that before **.**

Fade in to wide angle shot of a forest, mountainous and misty.

Claire: They're right up your alley….

Cut to:

The tour group observes the dinosaurs roaming in their habitat through an observation window.

Zara: This place seems innocent enough.

Claire: But I thought INGEN had the only access to the cloning tech.

Fade in: a lab, test tubes line the walls, scientists scurrying around workstations and incubators filled with eggs. The lead scientist gives the visitors a tour.

Lead scientist: You will find that our zoo houses the most impressive attractions known to man, creatures that will blow anything your zoo can offer out of the water.

Claire: Jurassic World wasn't just any zoo.

LS: My greatest apologies Miss Dearing, I couldn't _quite_ recall the name of that place. Well, I guess out with the old and in with the new.

Zara notices a crate nearby marked with a familiar logo.

Zara: INGEN?

Cut to:

A door marked No Entry, Authorized Personnel Only.

Fade In: Lab

Alan Grant Voice-Over: What John Hammond and Ingen did at Jurassic Park is create genetically engineered theme park monsters, nothing more and nothing less.

An egg rocks back and forth in its nest, cracks forming on it. It breaks and an inhuman scream comes forth.

Cut to:

THIS SUMMER

Cut to:

A worker examining an electrical panel, not knowing that a dinosaur is sneaking up on him.

CHAOS

Cut to:

Exterior Night. Soldiers are frantically firing into the sky.

Cut to:

Exterior Night. Soldiers being snatched away into the air left and right.

REIGNS

Cut to:

Hallway. Claire and Zara running frantically through a corridor, pursued by a dinosaur. The lights overhead blink in and out. Bloody handprints line the walls.

Cut to:

Rainy night. Zara, bloodied and battered leaning against a tree. She defiantly aims a pistol at one of the creatures approaching her, daring it to come an inch closer.

SUPREME

Cut to logo:

JURASSIC WORLD: CHAOS EFFECT.

COMING SOON.*

*Release dates and final scenes subject to change.


End file.
